WeWork pledges to stay committed to Korean biz

WeWork said Thursday it would continue to push forward with its Korean business, as the local branch showed signs of resilience in its local operation despite the coronavirus fallout.

According to WeWork Korea, which operates 20 shared working space locations in Seoul and Busan, its space-as-a-service platforms here logged their highest figures in monthly membership renewals and sales in July.

The company also said that it saw a 7 percent increase in membership from February to July, though it declined to elaborate further on the numbers.

WeWork Korea first launched here four years ago.

The latest result came amid WeWork Korea’s continued efforts to optimize its portfolio, partly by adding new floors across multiple locations in the Gangnam and Yeouido areas of Seoul. It has also maintained its startup accelerator business by running WeWork Labs programs and leasing space to Beiersdorf and KB Financial Group for their startup incubation programs, WeWork Korea added.

“WeWork stays committed to its Korea business more than ever and will continue to focus on the essence of our core business, which is to become the leader in the space-as-a-service industry,” said Patricia Chun, general manager at WeWork Korea.

As of July, WeWork Korea locations housed some 20,000 members and 1,550 enterprise members.

Globally, WeWork logged $882 million revenue in the second quarter, up 9 percent on-year. Last week, WeWork received a $1.1 billion debt financing commitment from SoftBank.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)