KT is expected to open VRIGHT, a city virtual reality (VR) theme park in March, and make a full-fledged entry into the VR and AR (augmented reality) business. KT plans to carry out projects to create a realistic media ecosystem from the establishment of content experience space to collaboration with content companies and investment in related sectors. The company plans to achieve sales of KRW 100 billion in related businesses within two years, and to increase the domestic realistic media market to KRW 1 trillion.

KT revealed the plans for the VR & AR business strategy meeting, which is one of the core technologies of the 5G era, at the Gwanghwamun building in the morning of February 20.

At the event, Yoon Kyung-lim, director of the KT Future Convergence Project, said, "Most of the discriminatory services in the 5G era are realistic media like VR and AR. This is an important opportunity to lead the next generation media industry in the 5G era. It will be a good opportunity for us to develop a business that can test and commercialize AR services."

KT plans to aggressively revitalize the VR and AR ecosystem in order to grow the domestic real media market estimated at KRW 180 billion by 2017 into the first tranche market in 2020.

The company plans to speed up the expansion of space to experience related contents while leading the VR and AR content platform business.

First, KT will co-invest with GS Retail to open the city`s VR theme park "Bright" in Shinchon in early March. Bright will show about 50 kinds of VR contents such as `Special Force VR: Universal War` and `Flying Jet`, a first person VR shooting game. It plans to expand the realistic media experience space in the form of direct stores and franchisees to 200 by 2020. In addition, the company launches a `Personal VR Theater` service with an integrated head-mounted display (HMD).

At the same time, it will pursue win-win plans with small and medium-sized VR business owners. In order to revitalize the realistic media market, the company will share its VR & AR platform and content with small and medium-sized VR operators at reasonable prices. KT and KT`s media group companies Skylife and KTH collaborated on the content platform.

The `VR Alliance` in order to accelerate the creation of a sensible media ecosystem, in which terminal makers, content providers such as game companies, and IT companies participate, will be launched within the year.

Especially, KT plans to invest W5bn annually in realistic media content related fields to lay the foundations for growth in the VR and AR content industries.

VR and AR dedicated funds to collaborate with domestic operators to create realistic media contents of various genres such as video, game, and webtoon. Besides, it will secure copyright of famous global contents and develop contents using it.

Also, KT plans to establish a partnership with the government-related organizations such as the government and the association in the second half of this year in order to revitalize the sensible media market, and plan to implement measures to mitigate related regulations.

By Kim Ji Young kjy@


[ copyright ⓒ The Digitaltimes ]