‘Asia needs to become one team to create global content,’ says SK Telecom CEO

“Asia needs to become one team to create global content,” said SK Telecom President Park Jung-ho on Monday at the ASEAN-ROK Culture Innovation Summit, which was held at BEXCO in Busan’s Haeundae District. “The success of the Korean Wave stems from the strong cultural capabilities of Asia. If we join hands, we can start an ‘Asian movement.’”

The forum took place on the side of the ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit, bringing together entrepreneurs as well as political leaders including President Moon Jae-in. Aside from Park, Reed Hastings of Netflix, Bang Si-hyuk of Big Hit Entertainment and Brian Chow of iME, a global entertainment group based in Taiwan delivered speeches.

The speeches by Park and Hastings drew particular attention, as SK Telecom has challenged the world’s largest streaming service Netflix by launching its own OTT service “Wavve” in the Korean market.

Park suggested creating the so-called “Tech-driven Entertainment for Asian Movement (TEAM)” project, which aims at forming a pan-Asia alliance that creates content utilizing innovative technologies. “Let’s open an “Asia content studio” that promotes and supports investment, technical cooperation and exchange of talent to make the TEAM project come true,” he said.

The SK Telecom CEO also shared the vision of Wavve becoming the media platform where Asian services collaborate. “Asia has about 250 OTT services, but they cannot create great global content that reflects Asian values if they are not integrated. Wavve can serve as a hub that brings everyone together,” said Park.


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