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SM Entertainment/Weverse |
SM Entertainment artists will join Hybe's K-pop fan community platform Weverse.
Weverse, the largest global K-pop fan community platform, has around 65 million users from 245 countries or regions worldwide.
Weverse on Monday announced that a dozen artists from SM Entertainment will open their fan communities on the platform by September.
SM Entertainment is one of the nation's leading K-pop agencies whose roster of artists include aespa, EXO, NCT, Red Velvet, SHINee and Super Junior.
The current official fan community, Kwangya Club, operated by SM Entertainment will be relocated to Weverse and artists and fans will be able to communicate through various media content and services on the platform.
Each artist's official fan club membership will be managed through Weverse and the official goods and merchandise shop will also be launched under the mobile fan commerce platform Weverse Shop.
Kakao Entertainment, the entertainment arm of IT giant Kakao, also released a similar notice on Monday but did not mention which artists are set to join Weverse.
Kakao added SM will maintain its mobile chat service, Bubble, even after the official fan community moves to Weverse. It would continue to sell the official merchandise and albums through its in-house store SMTown &Store.
The latest partnership follows after Hybe and SM's biggest shareholder, Kakao, in March reached an agreement after a drawn-out management feud over SM.
On March 12, Hybe withdrew its bid to take control of SM and said it would instead cooperate with Kakao Entertainment on its platform business.
