South Korea’s tech giants bolster short-form video content services

South Korea’s tech behemoth Naver Corp. is poised to strengthen its short-form content service on surging demand for video content that is less than a minute long. 

Naver sent out a proposal to its content partners and influencers to test the waters in terms of supply, according to industry insiders on Friday. 

“We are planning to serve video content that is between 15 seconds to a minute long,” a Naver employee familiar with the development told The Korea Economic Daily. “The plan is to work on strengthening the short-form content as a company-wide initiative.”

When launched, it will be the first time for the South Korean tech giant to provide a platform solely dedicated to short-form content.

Similar efforts in the past include the Naver Moment tool, which allows bloggers to edit short-form videos to upload directly onto Naver Blog. 

The tech company has also been uploading videos that are shorter than 10 minutes to its livestream shopping platform Naver Shopping Live. 

The shorter videos are to explain the product’s specifications in rapid-fire mode, as opposed to regular livestreamed content that lasts about an hour. 

Naver is not alone in its plan for bolstering short-term content service.

Kakao Corp. created a new segment within the news aggregator Daum News website last week, specializing in short-form videos.

The tech juggernaut will provide short-form news and other information-driven content in collaboration with its 117 partners.

Kakao was established as a result of a merger between Daum Communications and the original Kakao Inc. in 2010.

Samsung Electronics Co., for its part, updated the Flex Cam function on the Galaxy Z Flip4 smartphone released last month. 

The function allows for taking short-form videos from various angles by folding and unfolding the foldable mobile device. 

At the Galaxy Studio located in Mapo District, Seoul, visitors can test the new function and submit their videos to the electronics giant. 

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The decisions follow a surge in shorter videos among South Koreans in their 20s and 30s.

In the second quarter of this year, TikTok, a short-form video hosting service operated by the Chinese company ByteDance, boasted the longest average user engagement per day out of the top three performing social media platforms, according to market intelligence provider Sensor Tower.

On average, a user was on Tiktok for 95 minutes, on Youtube for 74 minutes and on Instagram for 51 minutes.

All three platforms provide short-form video content. 

The number of monthly active users of TikTok outside of China exceeds 1.46 billion, an 11 times jump in just four years. 

The Chinese platform operator increased the video length limit to 10 minutes.

The short-form content service on YouTube is called Shorts and the videos run for 15 seconds to a minute. 

Reels by Instagram, owned by Meta, has the same duration limit as Shorts. 

But it’s not just the millennials that show heavy dependency on TikTok.

A July survey of Korean teenagers showed they spend 1.94 billion minutes a month on the short-form video app.

That exceeds their 1.86 billion minutes on KakaoTalk, the top domestic mobile messenger app, according to market data analysis service WiseApp. 

About 80% of Gen-Zs watch short-form content for an average of 75.8 minutes on weekdays and 96.2 minutes on weekend days. 

“Short-form content is popular because there is less time pressure for viewers and can serve as a gateway to engaging users to related services such as longer videos or blog posts,” an industry insider said.

Write to Han-Gyeol Seon at always@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.