Hyperconnect announced its 2018 performance on April 2nd. Its sales, operating profit, and net profit all grew compared to last year and are its biggest performance ever. Combined sales rose 68 percent to 104.5 billion won (about US$91.8 million).
Hyperconnect analyzed that video messenger Azar, the flagship service, led the growth. Azar has made rapid growth in new markets, such as Europe and Asia and in existing key markets, contributing to the growth of sales. As of April last year, the number of Azar downloads reached 200 million, with 300 million downloads and 50 billion matches accumulated since nine months ago. Last year, it ranked seventh in the global app sales division on Google Play.
On top of this, the optimizing of local marketing by utilizing overseas hubs and enhancing the value of the Azar brand has enabled a virtuous circle of marketing efficiency based on economies of scale. Profitability also rose. The operating profit from Hyperconnect 2018 was $17.2 billion, up 93 percent from last year. Net profit came to 17 billion won (about US$14.9 million), up 134 percent from a year earlier.
Hyperconnect hopes to continue its growth in 2019 by developing technologies and aggressive global marketing. Based on mobile video technology and mobile machine learning capabilities, the company will continue to release new products and carry out large-scale marketing with seven foreign companies and branches based on their bases. The plan is to continue to expand the market for Azar and new products.
“Video-based services are leading a major trend in the global mobile app market,” said CEO Ahn Sang-il of Hyperconnect. “We will continue to introduce new services that can work in the global market and produce results in 2019 based on the strength of developing and commercializing mobile WebRTC video technology for the first time in the world over the past five years.”
