| Hi everyone, this is Sohee in Seoul. Shares in South Korean companies are buoyant on hopes for new opportunities in China. But first... Three things you need to know today: • A Chinese app developer is suing Apple over its App Store practices
• X rivals Threads and Bluesky saw an influx of users after Trump's win
• Argentine fintech Ualá reached a $2.75 billion valuation Dear U Co., an affiliate of K-pop giant SM Entertainment Co. and operator of fan-artist messaging platform Bubble, announced a partnership with Tencent Music Entertainment at the end of October. Its shares are now more than 50% higher, as the move's been read as a signal of relaxation of China's informal ban on Korean content. As you might recall, Seoul's installation of a US missile defense system back in 2017 got Beijing to slam the door shut on Korean entertainment, cosmetics and tourists. Overnight, the biggest market for K-pop and Korean drama was a no-go. Now, the $114 billion Korean entertainment industry has spread its wings to more markets and China appears to once again be taking interest. Kakao Entertainment Corp., on a path to an initial public offering, also clinched a music distribution deal with Tencent rival NetEase Inc. in October. Couple those agreements with China's introduction this month of a visa waiver for short visits by Koreans and you have mounting evidence of thawing relations. Korean travel stocks also rose on that news. But not so fast. The upbeat mood quickly turned after Donald Trump's election to become US president again. "It's great news that China's reopening again. But we can't rule out the possibility that everything could get reverted back under Trump's presidency," said Hakhee Lee, chief operating officer at Dear U. It took nearly two years of work to launch the Dear U app on Tencent's platform, but Lee worries about how further US-China spats may affect Korea. Trump's first presidency was characterized by a number of us-or-them choices for nations like South Korea, which would rather do business and sell to everyone. But Seoul's favorable stance toward US trade and security policy may potentially make it a target for any backlash from Beijing — If there are signs of a US-China trade war season 2, Chinese companies might be reluctant to proceed with any Korean-related projects because they wouldn't want to risk the Communist party halting those ventures. China used to be the largest market for Korean entertainment before the clash over defense hardware. K-pop artists held massive concerts in Beijing and Shanghai, and Korean dramas reaped enormous profits and attracted nationwide fandom in China, which at one point accounted for about 40% of sales. Over the recent lean years, companies like Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Baidu Inc. have helped develop China's own creators to substitute for the missing Korean ones. Now there are Chinese idols in the mainland more popular than any K-pop groups. Chinese drama has also improved in quality and is starting to be exported to Southeast Asia. That's just a small part of bigger efforts China is making to woo nations in the wider Asia region, with Indonesia welcoming President Xi Jinping on Friday and promising more than $10 billion in deals between the two nations. With Trump's divisive politics and negotiating style, the concern is that countries like Korea may be forced to choose sides again. And China is too big to ignore for Korean content players, as there are still millions of Chinese fans who love watching Korean dramas. Presently, they do so via pirate sites or by using virtual private networks. But appreciation for Korean entertainment can be seen in the many Chinese fans flocking to South Korea to attend K-pop concerts. "Imagine if we draw just 1% of subscribers out of the 500 million users on Tencent's platforms," Lee said. "That'd be 5 million users, which will easily exceed the size of our current monthly active users." Scale is China's undeniable attraction, but its recent gestures of warmth are now viewed with more caution, as companies await signs for how the renewed Trump-Xi relationship will shake out. Until then, it's too risky to plan anything, one K-pop agency executive told me, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.—Sohee Kim Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba pledged more than $65 billion of fresh support for the nation's semiconductor and AI sector as Tokyo looks to keep up with a global spending spree on cutting-edge tech. Ishiba hopes public aid of more than ¥10 trillion by fiscal 2030 would serve as a catalyst to generate public and private investment of more than ¥50 trillion over the next 10 years. The Biden administration will support a controversial UN cybercrime treaty. Bitcoin options show traders are betting on $100,000 by year's end. Hong Kong's finance sector is bouncing back from a bruising talent drain, with the number of licensed professionals hitting a record. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment