Korea’s adult audio platform eyes Japan for global biz

South Korea’s adult audio content platform for women raised money to make inroads into Japan as a start of its global business.

Sensual Moment Co., which operates a romantic fantasy autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) app Pling, said on Tuesday it has secured 1.7 billion won ($1.3 million) from a local venture capital firm in Series A funding.

Pling provides audio content produced by a group of professional writers, voice actors and voice creators working on YouTube. It has about 1,300 pieces of various genres of adult audio content, especially short-form content. About 150,000 users have downloaded the app since it was launched in April last year.

Sensual Moment plans to use the money to foster content production infrastructure and begin the service in overseas markets starting from Japan and other Asian countries. It will add web novels to its content lineups in the second half.

“The Korean wave of audio content is coming soon after dramas and webtoons,” said a Sensual Moment official. “Based on Pling’s original content IP, we aim to lead the Korean wave of audio dramas,” the official added, referring to intellectual property.

South Korea's small content platform operators such as webtoon producers are targeting the world’s digital adult market to expand their businesses.

The global audio content market was estimated at $22 billion as of 2019, according to Goldman Sachs. The market was expected to grow as audio content played a role as a digital detox amid increasing digital fatigue, industry sources said.

South Korea’s audio content market is growing at an annual average of 150%, said German consumer market tracker Statista. The market is expected to increase to $91.6 million by 2024.

Write to Jong-Woo Kim at jongwoo@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.