Korean mobile carriers anticipate metaverse metamorphosis

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Korean mobile carriers anticipate metaverse metamorphosis

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Korean mobile carriers are eyeing the cooled-down metaverse market in hopes that it will heat up again following a potential mix with the AI boom. They are rolling out new platforms and updating existing ones throughout the year to maintain ground in the sector.
 
The metaverse business, once hailed as the IT industry’s future food, is facing sharp declines in investment. The scale of investment for the metaverse industry across the globe in the first quarter shrunk to $586.7 million, down 70 percent on year.
 
In the same period, funds for generative AI grew 275 percent to around $2.3 billion.
 
The metaverse bubble has burst in Korea as well. As of June last year, only 4.2 percent of Koreans were accessing metaverses, according to the Korea Information Society Development Institute. Monthly active users of Naver’s Zepeto, which began service in 2018 to become Asia’s largest metaverse platform, plateaued at around 20 million since August last year.
 
Despite bleak conditions, telecom carriers looking to enter foreign markets and raise new profit models with their service are hanging on to the metaverse business.
 
KT announced plans to update its business-to-consumer metaverse platform Genieverse in July at a metaverse conference held in central Seoul on Tuesday. It will implement AI non-player characters that talk and move like humans into the virtual platform using its large-scale language model Mi:dm. A digital twin service that allows real stores to take orders from metaverse stores is also underway, according to the carrier.
 
“Metaverse and AI are ‘best friends,’” said Lee Chul-joo, head of AI metaservice development at KT, stressing that the company will fuse metaverse with its super AI to allow metaverse to settle in the market.
 
Genieverse, which began in March as an open beta service, has been downloaded more than 46,000 times.
 
LG Uplus announced Thursday that it plans to launch “Kidstopia,” a metaverse platform designed for children, in the third quarter of this year. Kidstopia targets Generation Alpha, or people born in the 2010s. It released an open beta service in February upon receiving consultations from education and game experts.
 
The platform will become a “representative metaverse service for kids in Korea by adding in various subjects of learning elements,” said Kim Min-gu, head of Web3 business development at LG Uplus.
 
Metaverse, along with blockchain and the internet-of-things, has the potential to pump up demand for communication services, industry sources say. Growth in metaverse-exclusive content may boost demand for 5G and 6G high-speed data services and increase the amount of data used per person.
 
“It will cost a significant amount of money for metaverse platforms to look real, and the advancement of generative AIs presents opportunities to improve realistic features and reduce costs,” said Kim Ju-ho, a computer science professor at Kaist. “A synergy between the two is worth anticipating."
 
A common strategy for carriers in the metaverse market is customization.
 
SK Telecom currently operates its metaverse platform “ifland” launched in 2021 in 49 different countries and is implementing customized updates to the service, partnering with local telecom companies. SK Telecom earlier last month launched the “if home” feature that allows eFriend users to own a three-dimensional private space in ifland.
 
KT’s Genieverse is demonstrating a pilot feature named AI M.I.M (message, image and motion) to allow users to customize their metaverse based on the text they input. LG Uplus launched the Uverse platform for universities and the Uplus Virtual Office for companies in an effort to target users by their age and occupation.
 
The carriers have high hopes for the new head-mounted displays (HMDs) set to be revealed in the second half of this year. Their fingers are crossed for HMDs to pave the way for metaverse markets to boom once again by offering enhanced realistic experiences in extended reality.
 
Apple is likely to unveil its Reality Pro gadget with virtual reality and augmented reality features at the Worldwide Developers Conference in California slated for Monday.
 
Meta, voicing aspirations for the metaverse business with its new name, is also likely to reveal the Quest 3 model in the latter half of the year, presumably during the Meta Connect conference in September or October.
 
“Apple will immediately own the upscale [mixed reality] market with headsets that cost more than $2,000, but Meta will remain dominant in the cheaper segment,” Bloomberg reported.
 

BY KIM KYUNG-MI [sohn.dongjoo@joongang.co.kr]
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