SOOP, the new South Korean live-streaming platform from AfreecaTV, was launched on June 5th. The platform looks to completely replace AfreecaTV in a rebranding effort that will feature a renewed focus on esports and gaming content. The rebranding effort is most likely a response to the shutdown of Twitch in South Korea and subsequent competition from Naver-backed streaming platform Chzzk.
In its first week, SOOP generated 24M hours watched and hit a peak viewership of 394K viewers. This makes it the fourth most-watched live-streaming platform for the week. Sitting just below it at #5 is Chzzk with about 14.5M hours watched.
When compared to the performance of AfreecaTV, SOOP’s first week was on par with the platform’s previous weeks’ viewership, increasing about 14% when compared to the end of Q1. This increase can also be attributed to viewers moving from Twitch to other platforms at the end of February.
During the first week, many of the top SOOP streamers were AfreecaTV streamers that carried over their accounts, including the top streamer 와꾸대장봉준 who generated 1.5M hours watched. Most of his content is streamed under the app’s “Social” category, which is akin to Twitch’s “Just Chatting” category. About 300K hours watched this week were from his Minecraft and League of Legends streams.
Several streamers who made the top list, including 우왁굳 and 고세구, are South Korean streamers who made the transition from Twitch to AfreecaTV in February before the shutdown.
In addition, 아이네♪ was the 10th most-watched streamer during the first week of SOOP, with most of her viewership coming from Minecraft streams. The VTuber joined the platform in February with her debut stream being a live music concert. Before AfreecaTV, she was active on YouTube, and continues to post VODs on that channel.
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