ⓒ HANTEO CHART

Today, we’re going to introduce you to Hanteo Global, a music sales tracker that creates new value based on big data on K-pop. Let’s hear from company CEO Kwak Young-ho.

Hanteo Global is the world’s only music sales tracker that has big data on K-pop. At this very moment, data on K-pop album sales all around the world are automatically being collected by our POS system and Open API. Based on the compiled data, we announce the Hanteo Chart, our album sales tracking chart.

South Korea is the sixth-largest music market globally, followed by the fast-growing one in China. Enthusiastic K-pop fans are eager to buy albums of their favorite idol stars, or stream and download their music to boost their rankings on music charts. K-pop fan clubs are known as the most powerful fan base in the world.

With the global K-pop market growing, we believed that it was essential to accurately tally and analyze relevant data to expand the market even further. Through the domestic and overseas K-pop sales data, we can find out the needs of K-pop fans the world over, while also collect big data. We make constant efforts toward the worldwide expansion of K-pop.

As a parent company of Hanteo Global, Hanteo Chart is Korea’s only music chart that sums up album and music sales in real-time. For this purpose, it uses its calculation system and data that it has collected for about 25 years since its establishment. Mr. Kwak, who became CEO of Hanteo Global in the second half of 2016, wondered how to develop Hanteo Chart into a reliable music chart trusted by K-pop artists and fans all over the world.

It was pretty challenging. I wasn’t a music expert, so I decided to meet as many people as possible, regardless of the industry. I typically attended three or four meetings a day. I guess I’ve met some 4,000 new people since I entered the music industry. I worked really hard to set the direction of the business and will reset it, if necessary.

We’ve already won the trust of global K-pop fans. While other music chart companies depend mostly on social media data, we analyze data on both producers and consumers of albums, digital audio files, social media, portal sites and broadcasting. This is our biggest strength. Based on our expertise, we’ve developed ways to help artists grow quickly in the initial stage as well as a platform to analyze big data on music, and we continue to improve them.

Before buying K-pop albums, many music fans both in Korea and abroad make sure that their purchase data is reflected in Hanteo Chart. This shows that the fans have great confidence in this database.

Hanteo Global’s application, called “Whosfan,” has become another interesting conversation topic in the K-pop market. Launched last year, the “Whosfan” app is designed to allow global K-pop fans to communicate with each other and enjoy various services provided by Hanteo Chart. This includes news, music, videos, charts and album purchase confirmation. It’s a play area, so to speak, where K-pop fans from around the world get together to enjoy and share K-pop culture.

Many people say that when thinking of South Korea, K-pop is the first thing that comes to their mind. Our data show that the popularity of K-pop has reached its peak. But the real game starts now. Up to this point, there was no need to compile accurate data on K-pop to predict demand as domestic consumption was sufficient enough to produce a profit.

But the situation is different now, as the world market has become far larger than the domestic one. We’re communicating with K-pop fans all over the world. A lot of fans tell us about what they want from K-pop artists or their agencies. To maintain and expand the international K-pop market, previous marketing strategies are not enough. It is necessary to read the trend precisely with accurate data and provide contents that K-pop fans really want. To this end, we’re preparing for several projects.

In addition to Hanteo Chart and Whosfan, Hanteo Global applies its technology of collecting and analyzing big data on K-pop to other businesses as well. It provides various services such as “Hanteo News,” an Internet news site dedicated to K-pop, “DICO Education,” which is a Korean language education service for foreigners based on K-pop content and “DICO Entertainment,” a global K-pop performance platform. For fans in various parts of the world, Hanteo News is offered in three different languages—Korean, English and Spanish.

ⓒ HANTEO CHART

At present, Hanteo News is accessed by users from nearly 20,000 cities in 215 countries. Based on Hanteo’s big data, it specializes in recording and promoting the achievements of K-pop artists. As you know, fake news stories are rampant these days. Fans may get hurt by those fake stories. They often ask us if we deliver accurate news. To provide the clearest information to K-pop fans, we use automatic or algorithmic journalism, in which news stories are produced by computer programs.

Hanteo Global creates new value, based on big data on K-pop. Its potential and technology has already gained recognition. At a contest for AI startups in June, it received the grand prize, beating out some 100 rival firms. Only five days before this feat, it also won the Intelligent Startup Grand Prize in the Intelligence Award organized by the Korea Intelligent Information Systems Society. That is, Hanteo Global was honored to win two grand prizes in a row in the course of one week.

Now, the company is considering utilizing big data on K-pop for various industries, other than pop culture.

According to data from 2010 to 2020, the K-pop music market has grown every year. Indeed, K-pop enjoys unrivaled popularity and fandom worldwide. Many experts had predicted that the music industry would shrink. Contrary to the estimation, though, K-pop has grown significantly, which is a very rare case that is hard to find in any other part of the world. It comes as no surprise that foreign companies show great interest in us. They are amazed at K-pop’s status and reputation in the global music market. Our goal is to create global K-pop culture, in which K-pop artists and fans worldwide grow together. Based on big data, we’ll become a leader of K-culture that would make everyone happy.

Hanteo Global will continue to unveil quality content and services that prove satisfactory to K-pop artists and global fans alike. We hope the company will take the lead in further expanding the global base of K-pop and K-culture.