Asia’s largest metaverse platform, Zepeto, is stepping up its global expansion as it looks to compete against the Big Tech groups that are betting billions on creating avatar-filled virtual worlds.
Owned by Korean tech group Naver, Zepeto has attracted 340mn users since it launched in 2018. Unlike rival platforms developed by gaming companies, it is dominated by young female users.
The K-pop and fashion-focused avatar platform, which is valued at more than $1bn, has attracted investment from Korean entertainment companies JYP Entertainment, YG Entertainment and Hybe, as well as from SoftBank’s Vision Fund II.
“We have a long way to go to be more of a globally dominant player, but we are very much on the right track,” said Ricky Kang, head of business at Naver Z, the subsidiary that operates the Zepeto platform.
“We have established a very strong presence in Asia-Pacific, so we want to grow further in the region, but we also place a very strong emphasis on growing in the US and western Europe, [for example] in France, where we have already established high growth,” said Kang.
He added that Zepeto was popular in Brazil, and that it was working on Turkish and Arab language versions of the platform as part of a push into the Middle East.
It comes as groups from Facebook parent Meta to Microsoft are betting billions that the three-dimensional metaverse will become the next big tech platform.
Zepeto has quickly become the largest such site in Asia. It has about 15mn-20mn active monthly users, predominantly in South Korea, Japan and China. Of those, 70 per cent are female and mostly aged between 13 and 21.
But it has a long way to go to catch up with US rival Roblox, the $50bn online gaming company which also has a devoted pre-teen following among its 200mn monthly active users.
Kang said that while Zepeto had focused on users purchasing virtual items, “moving forward, the items and the experience that they can purchase will be more focused on individual virtual worlds . . . it’s a very similar business model to Roblox”.