MBW’s Stat Of The Week is a sequence during which we spotlight an information level that deserves the eye of the worldwide music trade. Stat Of the Week is supported by music information analytics agency Chartmetric.
HYBE’s superfan platform, Weverse, hit the milestone of 150 million cumulative world downloads in 2024.
That’s in response to Weverse’s 2024 International Fandom Development Report, the place the corporate revealed that the variety of artist communities on the platform grew 30% YoY to 162 in 2024.
The report additionally reveals that the platform’s consumer base grew constantly throughout all continents, with a median progress price of 19% final 12 months.
Sixteen separate world artist groups joined Weverse throughout the 12 months, with high-profile worldwide stars like Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Megan Thee Stallion, and Conan Grey driving double-digit consumer progress throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
The app’s customers come from 245 completely different international locations and areas.
At present, Weverse operates communities for artists together with BTS, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, SEVENTEEN, ENHYPEN, LE SSERAFIM, NewJeans, CL, P1Harmony, Henry, imase, AKB48, thuy, MAX, nightly, Gracie Abrams, New Hope Membership, and Alexander 23, amongst many others.
Weverse stated artists shared about 206,000 posts, whereas followers created 370million posts in 2024.
Direct messaging turned more and more common, with artists sending 698,000 messages and followers responding with 96.36 million messages. Notably, 55% of artists despatched direct messages to followers no less than each two days.
Weverse Dwell, the platform’s real-time video function, streamed 5,787 broadcasts totaling 4,779 hours of content material. The platform accrued 11.25 million viewers with 426 million whole views.
Probably the most-watched livestream was Jung Kook of BTS’s December broadcast Missed You a Lot, which garnered 23 million real-time views.
“2024 was a transformative 12 months for Weverse, as we expanded our artist communities, superfan engagement, and commerce actions on a world scale.”
Joon ChOi, Weverse
The platform additionally noticed sturdy progress in merchandise gross sales. Weverse Store bought 20.6 million gadgets of ‘merch’ in 2024 (+13% YoY), which encompassed bodily gadgets corresponding to albums and collectibles, plus digital gadgets corresponding to paid ‘memberships’ to artist fan golf equipment.
Bodily merchandise gross sales grew 10% YoY, whereas digital merchandise skilled a 24% YoY surge. Artist memberships emerged because the top-selling digital merchandise, with completely different memberships dominating in numerous areas.
“2024 was a transformative 12 months for Weverse, as we expanded our artist communities, superfan engagement, and commerce actions on a world scale,” stated JoonChoi, President of Weverse Firm.
“Weverse stays dedicated to innovating its providers to fulfill the evolving wants of artists and followers, solidifying its place as the middle of worldwide fandom tradition.”
When it comes to fan interactions, 4.88 million digital Fan Letters had been despatched in 2024, with JungKook receiving the very best variety of letters, whereas LEEHAN of BOYNEXTDOOR responded to probably the most with likes.
SEVENTEEN emerged as probably the most lively in posting, whereas ENHYPEN led in remark engagement.
“There are a selection of tech giants and level gamers each in Korea and abroad, cooperating and forging partnerships and launching various providers [for superfans],” Lee stated. “And my conclusion is that the sort of tendency and pattern is favorable for Weverse.”
Lee stated that the content material and product choices on Weverse “aren’t actually mature but,” and the involvement of different main gamers in establishing a superfan market might help.
“Proper now, Spotify and Amazon Music and different superfan enterprise platforms are rising. And I imagine that that is very constructive as a result of [it’s] contributing to increasing the superfan enterprise mannequin and market all over the world.”
Within the third quarter of 2024, HYBE’s “artist indirect-involvement” phase, which incorporates Weverse, reported a 31.8% YoY soar in income to KRW 205 billion ($142.7 million).
In December 2024, Weverse launched a set of higher-priced membership tiers for customers. The brand new supply, dubbed “digital membership” will reportedly upsell followers into new tiers with costs starting from $2 to $4 per 30 days, which is able to supply further advantages corresponding to offline entry to music and ad-free video streaming.
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