SK Telecom has announced that it will accelerate its expansion into Southeast Asia by signing a publishing agreement with the leading telecommunications firm in Malaysia, ‘Celcom Digi,’ and the IoT platform company in the Philippines, ‘Cherry.’
Yang Maeng-seok, head of the Metaverse CO at SKT, recently signed the contract with ‘Celcom Digi’ Chief Innovation Officer ‘Kukan Tirunabharas’ and ‘Cherry’ Chief Operating Officer ‘Michelle Marie Ngcushinco’ at ifland.
SKT will collaborate with ‘Celcom Digi’ and ‘Cherry’ to provide a localized metaverse platform and oversee global services across all regions. The partner companies, ‘Celcom Digi’ and ‘Cherry,’ will focus on ▲local brand partnerships ▲localized marketing ▲first-level customer support.
Additionally, SKT plans to introduce AI functionalities to ifland within this year. Examples include ‘Social AI agents,’ optimized AI NPCs for local languages and cultures, and a ‘3D AI Studio’ that generates 3D items and spaces tailored to the cultural context of various countries using generative AI.
Starting with Southeast Asian countries, SKT aims to discover partners in the Americas and South America, focusing on the synergy between the metaverse and AI. This is expected to lead to the expansion of ifland into a ‘Global AI Metaverse’ service that feels seamless even when accessed from different environments.
Furthermore, SKT plans to enrich the global user experience in the metaverse by adding support languages such as Malay, Indonesian, Hindi, and Spanish within the first half of the year, and by launching a curation feature to recommend content based on the customer profiles of different access regions.
Yang Maeng-seok stated that “Malaysia and the Philippines are crucial markets for the global expansion of ifland,” adding, “Through cooperation with local publishers and the introduction of AI, we will transform into a ‘Global AI Metaverse.’”
‘Kukan Tirunabharas’ of Celcom Digi mentioned, “We will innovate together with ifland and the metaverse industry, expanding customer value through Celcom Digi’s network technology and AI-based solutions.”
‘Michelle Marie Ngcushinco’ from Cherry expressed, “We are excited to showcase a new metaverse experience to global users at ifland through the collaboration of both companies.”
By Lee Sang-jin daedusj@autodiary.kr