Welcome to the live conference of SOOP's Q3 2024 earnings report. Greetings again. I'm streamer Annye Seulti . About three months ago, we were here, and it was quite hot, and now it's getting a little chilly these days now that we are arriving in the fall. You are wearing this beautiful SOOP T-shirt. Don't you have any spare? We have one. Can I have one? That'd be wonderful if I can get one. This live conference is open to anyone who is interested in SOOP, but as this is related to earnings, only those who have registered in advance can ask questions in the chat room. Today, we have CEO Jeong Chan-yong, Ellen Kim, Head of IR, and Ayala Chan , IR Manager. Will you say hi to those who joined us this morning?
Yes. I think this is really our first time that we coordinate each other in terms of the dress code, but that is because we have transformed ourselves completely to SOOP, including the service. So we're wearing this T-shirt with this logo, SOOP, GlobalSOOP logo. We thought it'll be a good opportunity to present this logo to you all. This will be the last icon for this year, so let us get into the details on our performance and also our outlook into the future. I look forward to that.
How about you, Ellen?
Hello. Good morning. I'm Ellen Kim. This T-shirt idea came from Mr. Chan. Perhaps every quarter, we could wear a different T-shirt. Perhaps next time we could wear the logo of Korean SOOP. That'd be wonderful. So we look forward to active engagement, active participation from you all, and we look forward to a fruitful discussion.
Great. Well, this was not communicated to me. Something missed. I didn't receive the note.
Hi, I'm Ayala Chan . This will be the last icon for this year, so I look forward to getting a lot of questions from you and active participation from all of the participants.
All right. I look forward to great news for today, too. So how are we going to do it? Today we're going to present you the Q3 2024 business highlights and financial results and get Q&A. All right. Let us get into Ayala will take us away. Slides, please.
Thank you. From now on, let us present you our Q3 2024 business highlights and financial results. As Korea's leading live streamer, SOOP has consistently expanded the live streaming ecosystem, systematically restructuring areas that require improvement and driving both qualitative and quantitative growth in this industry.
In particular, the new platform launch on October 15 served as a pivotal opportunity to reflect rapidly changing industry trends over the past decade, as well as the strong need for a brand that aligns with global standards and reestablish the identity of our domestic platform service. Now, SOOP will evolve to the next level by integrating various features, including AI, into our platform services. This will effectively support streamers' creation activities and enhance viewers' convenience and engagement. Through these efforts, we will realize SOOP's core values of creating and expanding a community where anyone can showcase their talents and become the owner of their content. It is encouraging to see rising participation from small and medium-sized streamers through the Hello SOOP event that launched alongside the platform's debut.
Furthermore, through upcoming events like the G-STAR event and Year-End Awards, we will continue creating opportunities to introduce our platform's new identity and showcase SOOP's vision to stakeholders, including partner creators and service users. With this evolved SOOP platform, we strive to maintain and grow a solid community based on enhanced user engagement. This effort is expected to fuel the continued growth of the gift economy, including subscriptions. Additionally, SOOP's advertising business has shown consistent year-on-year growth. While external conditions remain challenging for the advertising business, we never spare efforts toward steady growth by expanding our ad domains and diversifying our non-gaming advertiser portfolio. GlobalSOOP, following its beta launch in June, has prioritized platform stabilization, conducting final checks based on feedback from local streamers and users. The official launch is planned for the end of this year, with full-scale global market expansion strategies set to commence next year.
Next, the financial results for Q3 2024. Alongside the qualitative achievements of our business, our financial performance has also shown rapid growth this year. The third quarter's cumulative performance has exceeded our initial annual targets in terms of both revenue and operating income, driven by the annual growth momentum of our platform and advertising business. This growth trend is expected to continue into Q4, in line with the positive momentum of the platform business.
Let me now share with you more details for the revenue of the Q3. Q3 revenue reached KRW 110 billion , up by 3% QoQ and a 25% YoY. Platform revenue for Q3 totaled KRW 82.6 billion , dropping slightly by 0.2% QoQ, but growing strong by 27% YoY. In particular, Q3 saw significant growth in new streamers joining our platform and the number of paying users. Advertising revenue for the third quarter recorded KRW 26.2 billion , marking a 16% QoQ increase and a 22% YoY growth. Breaking this down further, platform advertising revenue grew 23% QoQ and a 13% YoY, influenced by seasonal factors. Branded contents remained stable with a slight QoQ decline of 0.3%, but rose by 14% YoY. Lastly, other advertising section showed a substantial growth of 56% QoQ and 45% YoY as revenue from the LCK franchise and league championship prizes were recognized.
Turning to operating expenses. Q3 operating expense totaled KRW 86.1 billion , up 18% QoQ and 31% YoY. Key drivers of the QoQ hike included the recognition of a one-time bad debt expense under other expenses and an increase in other commission for broadcasting rights linked to the Paris Olympics broadcasting rights and AI technology investments. Breaking down by cost type, as for the paying charge, which is a variable expense in nature, it recorded KRW 13.5 billion , down 1% QoQ, but up 39% YoY. Advertising commissions reached KRW 12.2 billion , reflecting a 2% QoQ increase and a 66% YoY growth due to the rise in platform advertising and changes in the structure of the branded contents revenue.
As for content production costs, original contents production efforts expanded, for example, SOOP Billiards, Oh! Run, I'm in Seoul Nature Season 3, and Star Latte, driving it up by 93% QoQ to KRW 3.2 billion , though it is still down 51% YoY as esports league production reduced this quarter. Employment cost, which is a fixed cost category, slightly declined by 1% QoQ, but increased 13% YoY to KRW 22.7 billion. For other commissions for broadcasting rights and others, it surged by 45% QoQ and 27% YoY, recording KRW 8.6 billion . Streamer support payment reached KRW 3.2 billion , growing by 24% QoQ and a whopping 106% YoY as streamers' broadcast activities increased in this quarter. Paying charge, covering cloud services for global offerings, rose by 30% QoQ and 69% YoY to record KRW 5.3 billion . Lastly, other expenses reflecting one-time costs, it surged by 162% QoQ and 125% YoY, amounting to KRW 11.6 billion . Now on to the operating income for Q3.
It reached KRW 23.39 billion , which is a 28% decline QoQ, but a 9% increase YoY, with an operating margin of 21.7%. However, after excluding one-time bad debt expense due to external factors, adjusted operating income would stand at KRW 30.3 billion, which can be a 9% QoQ decline and a 38% YoY rise with an adjusted operating income margin around 27.5%. The 3 Q's net income was KRW 24 billion , down by 13% QoQ, but up by 25% YoY. But again, excluding one-time bad debt expense, adjusted net income would be KRW 29.1 billion , reflecting a 5% QoQ and 51% YoY increase for this quarter. The last slide is the yearly financial statements. Thank you very much.
Okay, before we take any questions, I may pose one question to all of you. In just 18 years, this whole rebranding finally took place. What do you think of this? In the longer-term perspective, this rebranding may have some meanings or implications to the growth of the brand. What do you think of that?
The changing of a name, as I have repeatedly mentioned, is a great trigger, and it starts a building of a momentum for the entire brand. As we change the name, this actually changes our overall mindset, and it comes with the new policies, new offerings, new services. In all of that we do, it really motivates us and it reaffirms our commitments to this brand. I think not just me, but our entire members and families, basically, of our brand is now refreshed, and we're all, again, passionate and showing our passion again for this brand.
Yes. The Logo SOOP name is so beautiful, and I think it's a very, very apt name for your brand. Again, it's only been a very short time. This entire logo change is only a few weeks ago or days ago. I think even amongst us streamers ourselves, we keep on saying our old name, or we keep on saying BJ instead of streamers. I know it's quite in initial stages, but we ourselves are trying our best to really adjust ourselves to that new name and new brand.
Yes, new naming isn't coming with a great cost. We started it because we are going on global markets, but I can see that the responses are very positive. There's really no negative responses. There's one thing that I would mention. They say, just the name change is only a very superficial change, somewhat criticized.
These people always have had negative images. But having this new name and new mindset is a great thing to begin with, and this really brings us to a great point to round up this year and start the new year next time. We look forward to this. Let's take the first question, if there is any.
Let us wait. We don't have any questions as of yet. Why didn't you tell me about the dress code?
Was it yesterday or the day before yesterday? I said this idea just came into my mind, and these two ladies, they already had the T-shirts. I had the T-shirt because we had the global launching event, and then these two ladies didn't have them, so we distributed these two. I want one, too.
All right. We have a question here. It's coming from Shinhan Investment & Securities. What is the synergy if our investment in AI, what kind of energy do you expect from it, and could you elaborate more on then? Influencer-oriented advertisement is outperforming the regular advertisement business. Is that the impact that we're also experiencing?
For the first question, let's see. AI project, we already had five AI projects for about. It's a two-year-long project. We haven't really highlighted on those efforts because AI is something that helps us to do something. For example, the users will come in and with AI, the services can be provided to the users using AI. Also, when the streamers do their show, they can do the generative AI to create a video to make it more creative. Since streamers, their core activity is creating images and video, right? So Gen AI is definitely a great tool for them to diversify their images and their videos. Anything related to AI at Busan G-STAR, the first day of G-STAR, so that should be Thursday in the afternoon.
Kevin will be the one who will make the presentation and elaborate on our efforts in terms of AI, so it'll be great opportunity for you to tune in.
Can you just give us a sneak preview now?
Okay. How about there's a presentation, there's demonstration also.
That's wonderful.
I don't know which streamer will be part of that demonstration, but I know they finished the prep. Anything related to AI. So you will be given an overall roadmap in terms of AI and the projects that we have been developing. The demonstration will be given to you, so it'll be a good chance for you to take a look at our AI program.
All right, onto the second question. The question was the influencer versus non-influencers and whether the performance of one outperforms the other. I wonder what exactly that means. Let me try to understand and interpret this question with my colleagues. I get it now. If you look at the revenue, it has been growing. If you look at the demand and the market, as you all know, in terms of profitability, working with influencers and streamers is not our top priority. There are other platforms that are doing the influencer-centric or influencer-driven advertising. I know that market itself is growing and has been growing overall. To get to the more scale of economy, it is going to need some time. On advertising, more specifically, every year, though very slightly, we have been growing. Again, it is quite slight, but we have been growing for sure.
Last year and this year, there are situations in the market that make it very difficult to expect for the large growth. In November management plan, we might have to reconsider our plan, our strategy. For example, for the platform advertising, we talked about technological upgrade. We may have to have a one-year plan for that, or we may have to be more active on M&A. These are some of the strategical considerations that we will be looking into next month around.
Thank you very much for that answer. Moving on to the next question. Going on to the next question. Oh, wow, we got Star Balloons on VOD. Thank you. Mr. Chan, the paying charges have grown. Is that because of the global service? If so, when will the global P2P grid be applied, and what is the size of expected expense in terms of that?
As you said, the QoQ growth was influenced by the global service. That is because P2P has not been fully applied to Global . We have to consider the local network, and we are testing the local network. Actually, we had a full application of the P2P grid, but then we stopped because technically we were not happy with the quality, so we stopped. It has been about a month and a half since we did that, so we are making the preparation.
In November, engineers will go out there and they are going to do the testing over there. Our plan is that the global P2P will be fully applied by the end of this year. Once that happens, then the paying charges related to that will not be so impacted. The Q3 paying charges, yes, it is mostly about global, but if you consider the traffic is going to rise once the P2P is applied in a more extensive way, then you can expect that the paying charges will decrease. There are more questions.
From Daiwa Securities, Hee Hyun Jung . On the GlobalSOOP beta, what is the situation, and what is the strategy to acquire more users and streamers when it goes full swing by the end of the year?
Our plan is November for GlobalSOOP official launch. Function wise and also P2P will all be included in November. Basic features and functions will have to be fully operational by then. Again, our plan is sometime in November. Platform wise, we will continue to upgrade and update our platform. What you mentioned about the user and streamer acquisition strategy, just tomorrow actually, we have a meeting with the entire global business team. We have a few months left for this year and next year, we were going to talk about what we can do as a strategy.
So far, the GlobalSOOP was really driven by the esports. What I mean is there are global game companies, and we work with them. For example, we have a VALORANT league by GlobalSOOP. That was the basis of it. Only when you have that as a solid foundation, we can really take it to the next level. Fortunately, we have a strong global business network now, and we, I think, are quite ready and have a strong foundation for the esports. After that is the strategy for the users and the streamers, as mentioned. I think maybe next year we are going to have some sort of promotion campaign strategies. Around the time for G-STAR Analyst Day, I think that is November 16th or actually on the 15th.
On that day, I can probably give you some peek into what that is going to look like, and I will update you on that later on. I think that 15th of November is going to be a critical day. Let us move on to the next question.
From Goldman Sachs, Mr. Cha. What is your focus between shareholder return and growth, and what is your priority in terms of growth strategy, for example, platform business, ads, or global service?
Oh, very good question. Thank you so much. In-depth question. For the last couple of months, this is something that has been in my mind, so I will answer that question for you. In terms of the growth of our business, if you get into the details, we want to strengthen our presence in the Korean pie, and also we have to expand ourselves into overseas markets because platform is our core business. Domestically, by this year and also to the H1 of next year, we have to have very strong presence in the market share in Korea so that we can signal that this is growing very strongly.
At the same time, next year, we're going to pour more efforts into expanding overseas. 2025 and 2026 will be the very important years for us to receive feedback from the market, and we have to prove ourselves. The global service is very important for us. We have all the plans looking into the first half of next year for Korean service. For ads, we're going to have to adjust our strategy so that we can make it more effective and efficient. Yes, shareholder return. That is very important, but how much room we have for the growth and current trend have to be considered. Considering all of that, we have to put more emphasis on growth.
As you know, shareholder return, for example, the value received from the capital market in comparison to our actual situation, there can be some discrepancy, and that can be compensated in terms of IR. In terms of the shareholder return policy, by the end of this year, we will be able to execute some of the policies that we are considering now. Was it a good answer? Perfect.
Okay, to the next question. What's the outlook for the fourth quarter's platform revenue and the advertising revenue? Or what do you think?
Because we may not be on the same page to this question. As for revenue, for the fourth quarter, we had the Chuseok, the holidays, and September, we saw a dip in the Star Balloon revenue. But if you look at the trend, October, I think the fourth quarter, we're very likely to rebound. Especially after rebranding into SOOP and after this official beta launch, we've had the Hello SOOP event. This really brought many of the new streamers into our platform, and especially the focus was, I don't want to make it into different tiers, but the mid-tier of the streamers have been influenced, have been inflowing to our platform thanks to these events. If you look at some of the indexes.
Before the Hello SOOP event, we've been working very much for this already, and if you look at the active streamer numbers or the streamers that receive the Star Balloons, both categories saw an increase. That is a very positive factor that is going to influence our fourth quarter revenue as well. This event that I mentioned is likely to continue until November, and I think that it's going to be more impactful to the streamer inflow, and that's going to impact the revenue on the platform. As for the fourth quarter outlook, I think we're going to continue to grow. On the advertising revenue, traditionally, fourth quarter is always a high season. Like I mentioned in the previous quarter, the branded content is all by the contract.
We already have a lot of contracts ready for the fourth quarter to be pushed out to the audience. I have no doubt that we are going to grow, even in terms of the advertising. I think the next time we meet, we are going to have very positive results. Thank you very much. Moving on to the next question.
From DB Financial Investment, Ms. Shin. Please update us on October traffic trend. Can you elaborate on marketing-related expenses due to execution of GlobalSOOP expansion strategy for 2024? Third, how much one-time expense do you expect for Q4, i.e., G-STAR?
Let me start. October traffic trend, I don't think it is bad. September, because of the Chuseok holidays, the traffic went down. October, November, and December, the trend will be very good. That is my expectation. GlobalSOOP strategy, we have to strengthen the ecosystem of GlobalSOOP, so we have to have a strategy and concrete plans and expenses. Now it is difficult for us to disclose how much we are going to spend, but we are going to have substantial marketing spending to make it effective. One-time expense, G-STAR and the end-of-year award. These two are big events.
Can we disclose how much? Ellen, can you comment?
For G-STAR, was it 2019? We spent KRW 1.5 billion at the time. That was a big event, but this year you have to consider the inflation for this year's G-STAR. Streamers' award at the end of this year, it is not going to be any big offline, so it's going to be very similar to the level of last year's. G-STAR expense, the first digit is not going to change, is it? No. In comparison to 2019, right. For the awards, we are having it at the Sangam Colosseum . That' s our venue. The users will be invited there, but how many seats available there? About 300 seats, and we are going to add some more seats, but still, we will not be able to invite that many users as we would like.
Next question from Shinhan. We have a question from Kang Seok-oh . "Since summer, I can see a lot of VALORANT content streamers and virtual influencers are joining SOOP. What do you think is bringing them to it? What are appealing points of SOOP as a platform?"
I think that is a trend, and it is the overall mood in the market. The VALORANT, we didn't have any footprint there or any standing there. In terms of this VALORANT as a category itself, we made our strategy. For a professional team or the streamers or the leagues, in all of those areas, we really started it. Once we have the momentum, I think the streamers naturally and organically just come to our platform. As for virtual, we have the [inaudible]. You know this already.
Since overall virtual is really. We have an upper hand in this landscape already. It is again pretty natural that the streamers follow us. Now the question is, what exactly is appealing them? This is all about how to facilitate this, how to activate this. What I mean is that if you look at our platform, everything is really just active. What that also means is that streamers can take advantage of our platform to participate or to make it into contents, or we offer more supports, and this can be what attracts them into our platform. Another side of it is as a user, or in terms of the users, for streamers, it can be an opportunity for them to keep their fans, but also bringing new fans into this streamer.
In terms of that active aspect of it, I think that is what sets us apart from other platforms. That is right. One of the people that I work with always tells me that SOOP is offering great supports to the streamers, helping them and facilitating their activities. Somebody that I know mentioned.
And I agree with that statement. From April and onwards, I have been creating my personal contents, and I got tremendous support from SOOP, so we want to thank you. I have had the 10 episodes already, and I am about to have another concert, so we want to thank the company. This is really making it the most out of this. I talk to a lot of streamers as well, and they always have two concerns. One is, what do they do? What is the content?
Because they sometimes can't do it just alone, and that has always been the biggest concern coming out of those streamers. As you mentioned just now, when you have a strong and solid community, that means you can have the other streamers for your show, or we can offer you some ideas for creating content. I think that ecosystem is really there for us. Also, like you mentioned, there is a great support giving out to the streamers. It' s not just financial support, which of course matters, but it can be on the production itself, the production facilities and infrastructure and all that. I think that is the review, right?
Yeah, that's how we evaluate. Not because I work here, but I too feel that really myself. In terms of those kind of supports to the streamers and also doing things together, collaborating is our one of the top priorities for sure.
Next question from Citi, Mr. Yu. "What's the Q3 PU trend like? After rebranding, do you plan to enhance the quality of the shows, for example, by addressing Excel shows? Will the one-time bad debt expense have impact on Q4?"
PU trend, how about you, Ayala? Could you comment?
In terms of the paying users, QoQ, 2.6% growth was recorded and YoY, 2.5%, so that's 27% growth. Paying users are the ones that pay through paying for the Star Balloons and other banners and stuff. They represent all our user foundation, so it's very encouraging. Active users. Also those users who come to our SOOP, they come in with their fans, and they come in, and they subscribe. Overall, these newly added streamers and the users are definitely revitalizing our platform.
There is no bad debt expense in terms of sales that will have impact on Q4. It'll be more of a net income will have an impact. That is because of the financial statement. For the Q4, the net income will increase. We could have very little bad debt expense impact on Q4 in terms of sales. The second question is about SOOP's philosophy. I think it'll require some very detailed answers. This is how I see this problem. We are essentially UCC platform. We don't produce content per se. We are a platform. The biggest advantage could be the biggest disadvantage, because that means all types of contents, all types of talents can be showcased in the platform in all shapes and sizes. So guideline. For that, it's very difficult to restrict them by doing some regulation or policies.
SOOP, for the last 18 years, our services have been enhancing continuously, not only in terms of service, but also in terms of social acceptance. We have been growing, but there's a bias already still exists, and there's some media coverage about that, too. Excel show, yeah, that was part of the conversation I had with the National Assembly at the audit, and I have full understanding why people are worried about that. Excel shows are not something that against any laws. It's not illegal to have that kind of content there. If we regulate those contents just because some people view it negatively, it's not appropriate for us to do anything like that. If there's anything that is illegal, then of course, we have to intervene. We're going to be very strong about that, and we're going to make very strong measures.
On that end, I believe that there's advancement that we see. This type of content is different because the risks that the Excel shows could have is not actually verified or realized, but still people kind of over-interpret it. If these people are penalized because of some illegal activities, then of course, SOOP will take very strong measures against it. There hasn't been anything like that happen. This is a very private, this is something about their own creation, and we have no right to intervene. If we do, that'll be overreacting. At the same time, we can't just sit idle. We can't just say that we are not responsible for anything. Still, we are keeping our eye on those contents. Our philosophy behind operating this platform, we have our own know-hows and our room for freedom of operation.
We look forward to your trust in how we handle these situations.
Well, thank you for that. We talked about this one-time expense, and the streamer award was one of that. If you look at last year, it was received so well amongst us. I actually have never been to an award. This year, though, I think I may want to be there. Is this year's ceremony going to be something similar to what we saw last year?
Yes. We have a larger number of streamers this year, and we are going to have more awardees this time around. We are going to keep the same or similar format, but we now have a greater portion of the virtual than last year. The question is how do we celebrate and how do we award the virtual streamers is one big concern.
We want to really focus on the streamers because we just have a greater sheer number of them. The difference this year is going to be a stronger focus on the virtual streamers. If you look at those that have come to us from other platforms, they don't know what it looks like at SOOP, and we want to maybe invite them to see and get a glance of what it is in. We can also fill these empty seats with the users. That is a slight differences.
The streamers in other platforms that have recently joined SOOP have also had interactions with me, and they have always said how they are impressed with the great supports from the SOOP brand itself. I am very proud that our platform is amazing, and I always kind of jokingly say that. If you look at the new streamers like [inaudible] and some other virtual streamers also, they now have a presence here with SOOP and on the very top. I can see big names joining us.
Again, you mentioned virtual streamers are growing in number and non, I guess, human streamers. There is also a collaboration project between the human versus virtual streamers. Can you maybe share your thoughts on that?
Yes. We are definitely going to expand the virtual aspects and as to what we support them in terms of the functions or technically, we are growing that as well. Joining the different streamers, the collaborative projects, we have done something like a personal training with the virtual, and we have seen great examples in terms of the great contents being created. What we plan to do down the road is m ore participatory and hands-on content for the streamers that are virtual. Because, of course, virtual always comes with great resource requirements, so I think we can probably support that as well.
That sounds amazing. I look forward to it. Next question. From CLSA, Mr. Kim: According to you, what is the potential for overall domestic live streaming market? Can you answer the question? For example, in terms of the revenue and the potential active users.
I think it can grow double the current status. If you look at all kind of services that we provide, the live streaming is really the trend, and you feel like if you get into the market, you will make money. But as an occupation, you have to be able to have some kind of income. I would say at least KRW 2 million has to be met so that you can call yourself a professional streamer. Some thousands of streamers now are not earning that much money, so they are always at the crossroads. Is this what I am going to pursue as my occupation, or is this going to be just my hobby? From the perspective of a platform, what you have to consider is that you have to create conditions or the environment for the streamers to be able to make such money.
You have to be able to also make sure that these streamers get constant income from our platform. But then again, we have to give up all of our commissions. So you have to strike a great balance. The business model of the streamers has to be diversified, has to expand, and that will come hand in hand with our policies. The more streamers you have, the more content the users can enjoy, and the more engagement you will enjoy with the users. So it will take time, but still, I feel the potential is great.
In addition, the monthly ARPU is now above KRW 300,000. How much growth potential do you see?
Yes, we have a membership business model. If you look at it, in those cases, usually the ARPU is about KRW 50,000- KRW 100,000. When we had about KRW 150,000, we got that question, "How much potential growth you see?" When we reached KRW 200,000, we got the same question, and before KRW 300,000, we got the same question again and again. Mobile and/or online market, there is a payment system and there is a sponsorship model that we pursue. If you look at the overall growth trend, I think there is still the potential for further growth. Star Balloon is a model that is accepted. Nobody is saying anything negative about it. Basically, all the global companies are taking up this business model. It is a very solid business model, and I think there is definitely a potential for even further growth.
Just to add to that, ARPU grew dramatically, but also with it came the growth of the paying user in many of the indicators. That means there are people who have never paid, but once you start paying, it is likely that they will continue to have that habit or behavior. Not just the Star Balloon, but we have the subscription model and many other different items available, and we are strengthening those as well. We do have high ARPU users, but they shouldn't just be the sole priority. There are people who prefer subscription over Star Balloons. We now have two tiers in the subscription, but we may diversify that as one way to respond to that, so that we can increase the paying users, even though it's maybe a small transaction value.
Okay. Thank you very much. The last question. In the five years, the global services contribution to the revenue will be growing to how much? Is it going to be as big as the domestic one?
Well, it's not going to be that. As you know, for 10 years, within the growth, our domestic platform has been growing greatly, and the growth rate is just amazing because there's more room for us to grow even more and have more market share. Global service, it just started, and within five years, it's going to exceed the share we have domestically. Without anything amazing happening, I don't think that's going to happen within five years. But within five years, of course, global service will have bigger portion at our business. Thank you for that.
Next question from KB Securities. Mr. Choi Yonghyun posed the question: Looking at or considering traffic or the time spent on the platform, it makes sense that there's a significant upside in advertising, but it's so disappointing that we just haven't realized it with speed. Where do you see the opportunities for breakdowns in the advertising value chain? You even mentioned M&A.
Well, yes, I fully agree what you said. In Korea, a platform of our size, there aren't that many platforms with the kind of loyalty that we have, not just looking at the traffic. So the advertising upside is very, very significant as you pointed out rightly. Now, I think there are two breakthroughs in the advertising value chain. Number one is digital advertising.
How much of a reach and the power we have, and the second is platform advertising using ad tech. So these are the technological upgrade. These are two breakthroughs that we can possibly look into. Ellen mentioned business plan, these two will be the main point, and we're going to join our heads together to find those breakthroughs in more detail. Because if you look at it, first of all, traffic, it's been growing steadily. But if you look at our space available for advertising, and you're looking at the user behavior, it's likely that the pattern will continue. What that means, it all comes down to the unit price. But unit price is all very much of a competition in that very, very competitive space for the advertising. Everybody wants to be there, and what's the price that you're going to offer?
In order to bring the price up, the unit price up, what we need to do is enhance the effectiveness and efficiency. We need to verify and prove to our advertisers that we have the maximum potential for this efficacy and the efficiency and the effectiveness. So that when we have an amazing or really good selling, high selling products and items, the price can go up very high. The platform advertising strategies must be implemented.
Next question from CLSA, Mr. Kim. Are there any other indexes or trend other than MUV or PU/ARPPU are you observing? Is there anything that the external market is overlooking?
Thank you for this question. I know Ellen really wanted to talk about this, and we didn't have any opportunity to talk about this, so this is great. Because she has great pride in the internal indexes that we're following, and she says she's very sad that people outside are not following this trend.
Is it my time? Great. MUV, yes, that's important. Because MUV is something that we follow, the traffic of the visitors who come to us every month. That's important, but we really want to look at the activity of those who are on our platform. The engagement indices are growing.
VUV and one of the significant indices that we're looking at is a daily viewership time. So duration time itself in just for live, not the whole thing, but for live streaming, three hours and 17 minutes. This is very significant index. Ever since I've been tracking this, this has been maintained. It never went down. A couple of years ago, it was around one hour and something, but now it's been growing and growing consistently. So once you come into our platform, you cannot get out. You are completely immersed. Of course, newcomers are important and maintaining them, retaining them are important, but those people who are retained, how much they're using our platform, how much they're watching our shows, that's quite important too. And they're growing. And the active streamers, the number of shows, these indices are also growing.
That is driving up the viewer time and the concurrent logins. These are also going up. So DUV and daily viewing time, considering all these indices are increasing, that means those who love us, those who come and enjoy their time here, they really, really love us. And the new streamers coming in, that's going to only fuel such trend. So now are you happy? Oh, yes, you're satisfied? Yes.
Okay. Thank you very much for that Star Balloon. Last time, there weren't that many questions, so we rounded up quite quickly. This time we got a lot of questions, which is amazing. This is your fan who just sent a Star Balloon. So thank you for that. Anyhow, I think we are ready to wrap up the third quarter's earnings call. Maybe the last words?
We look forward to a very nice close of the year and at G-STAR Analyst Day, we are doing a lot of preparations for that event. On that very day of the event, we will also be revealing our plans for the GlobalSOOP and the domestic platform. So please look forward to it and we look forward to seeing all of you and I'll be there as well. So everyone, thank you very much.
My turn? If you look at the third quarter, we've seen a lot of changes until the end of October. We were going to do the launch earlier, but it's slightly slated for November later. We're going to do our best for the rebranding efforts and the global business and, of course, advertising and platform in all aspects. I think the evaluation have been quite positive. One thing though, there were external factor that really brought the one-time expense up this quarter. If you take that out of the consideration, I think internally we're very, very happy with the results. Again, there was that one-time event, external factor that brought the numbers down. But we look forward to the fourth quarter as well and I'll see you next year. Thank you all.
Last but not least, Ayala.
As the two mentioned already, this time is going to be the last time to see you in the call, but we do have a lot more events until the end of the year and more details can be shared in those events offline and so please stay tuned for what we do here at SOOP and we want to thank you for your time. Thank you very much.
Next year, I hope to be able to come back to you with even greater performance. So thank you all very much. See you next time.