South Korea’s top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. has joined hands with the country’s three leading entertainment agencies SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment and Big Hit Entertainment to re-enter the music streaming market five years after it sold the Melon.

SK Telecom said Wednesday that it signed an agreement with SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment and Big Hit Entertainment to collaborate on business-to-business music distribution and business-to-consumer music services.

The wireless service provider and the three entertainment agencies have agreed to distribute the entertainment companies’ music albums and contents through SK Telecom’s sound affiliate iRiver from Friday. Under the deal, iRiver will feed music contents of SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and Big Hit Entertainment to the country’s major online music streaming services such as Melon and Genie as well as retailers Synnara and Kyobo HotTracks.

They will also introduce a new music service platform by the end of this year. The new music platform will be backed by artificial intelligence (AI), 5G network and blockchain technologies, which will enable the platform to choose music contents for users based on their music preference, allow its users to enjoy music videos in the forms of augmented/virtual reality, and better protect copyrighted music contents.

SK Telecom has been seeking ways to beef up its content business after it sold off the country’s leading music service app Melon in 2013. Melon, Korea’s unrivaled music streaming app that was originally developed by SK Telecom, has been now under the country’s leading messenger app operator Kakao since 2016.

With the latest partnership, SK Telecom hopes to regain the control of the local music streaming market as SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and Big Hit Entertainment together make up nearly 15 percent of the country’s digital music content market and above 50 percent of the overall recorded music market.

SM and JYP are the country’s top two entertainment agencies based on market cap, and Big Hit is producer of latest K-pop icon BTS (Bangtan Boys).

By Kim Gyu-sik and Cho Jeehyun

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]