No.1 K-pop goods maker Copan Global eyes digital expansion

The world of K-pop is globally known for offering a truly wide selection of merchandise items for fans.

While balloons were the only goods used by the fans about 20 years ago, the cheering kit has now evolved to even include multicolor LED glow sticks. Outside the concerts, the K-pop fans around the world can buy anything from photo books, photo cards, clothes, pillows to towels, mousepads and more.

K-pop industry watchers say that the rapid expansion of the K-pop merchandise market over the last decade is largely driven by the market leader Copan Global Co.

Copan Global, established in 2012, is South Korea’s largest maker of K-pop goods such as photo books, albums, key chains and glow sticks. Its major clients include the leading entertainment companies in the country, namely SM Entertainment Co. and JYP Entertainment Inc.

The industry watchers also note that Copan is the only K-pop merchandise maker that has a value chain long enough to incorporate the stages of product planning, design as well as distribution.

Copan says that it always conducts consumer research prior to goods production, in order to identify the specific needs of the artists and their fans. 

Some examples of Copan’s unique products based on the consumer research results include the tambourine-shaped light ring for the fans of JYP’s girl group ITZY as well as the glow sticks equipped with Bluetooth function.  

Many of Copan’s top-selling products were designed by the company’s CEO Cho Sung-hi herself. Cho’s latest hits include the augmented reality (AR) photo card that allows fans to watch AR video content after they have scanned the card using a mobile app.

Cho started her entrepreneurial career in 2009 by selling photo books and music albums of SM’s TVXQ to Japan until 2012 when she officially set up Copan.

“We are able to monitor and react quickly to the shifting trends in the music segment as we are doing everything in-house except the actual manufacturing, which is done by a third-party,” Cho said.

Industry analysts say that Copan’s competitive advantage over its rivals is that the CEO has built a long track record of working with almost all major music labels in Korea. Based on her long-standing relationship with the entertainment firms, Cho was able to raise the market entry barrier by signing deals that granted Copan the exclusive rights to sell goods of some leading artists in Korea.

Copan said it is also planning to launch a mobile K-pop merchandise shopping app to allow global fans to buy goods from their smartphones. The app is expected to be more user-friendly than the company’s current website for shopping, Withdrama. 

Copan’s long-term goal is to become a total K-pop entertainment merchandiser with a digital presence, beyond the current identity as a maker of tangible items only.  

“Korea now has many world-class artists, whose fans deserve world-class merchandise items. Copan will contribute to the growing popularity of K-entertainment worldwide,” said Copan CEO.

The company also noted that more than 50% of its revenue came from overseas last year, fueled by the fast-growing number of local buyers in China, Japan and the US. Copan’s total revenue in 2020 was 52.3 billion won ($46.3 million).

“Our sales in the world’s leading e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Shopee are also growing fast. We expect our 2021 revenue to surpass 60 billion won ($53.1 million),” said Cho.

Write to Dong-hyun Kim at 3code@hankyung.com
Daniel Cho edited this article.