IMS Groups places large bet on the fast-growing metaverse field

IMS Group, a Chinese data-driven media marketing company, will increase its research and development investment in basic technologies, including big data and blockchains, to empower content creators, and is betting big on the fast-growing metaverse field.

The company reported its revenue amounted to 4.51 billion yuan ($699.5 million) in 2021, up 47.4 percent from the previous year, while its net revenue rose 19.9 percent on a yearly basis to 350 million yuan.

Its expenditures on R&D came in at 130 million yuan in 2021, an increase of 73.3 percent on a yearly basis.

Li Meng, chairman of IMS Group said the company aims to let the content creators match with brands and merchants on social media platforms covering short videos and livestreaming by leveraging big data and artificial intelligence technologies.

For instance, Weiq, its big data-based marketing platform, has connected more than 1.92 million content creators and nearly 180,000 enterprises, with the number of orders placed on the platform reaching 3.807 million last year. It is committed to helping content creators gain incomes.

"The metaverse is poised to be the next big thing after the mobile internet in the next 10 to 50 years," Li said.

"At present, the metaverse is still in a very early stage due to a lack of supporting hardware and a large number of users. Meanwhile, the business model is not far from becoming mature," he added.

IMS Group has launched Honnverse, which is committed to building virtual identities, virtual images, virtual spaces, virtual props, virtual social environments for users, and creating an immersive pan-entertainment virtual community. Its users have exceeded 400,000, Li said.

As one of the hottest tech buzzwords, metaverse promises a future in which the virtual and physical worlds are inextricably interconnected. The metaverse is basically a shared virtual environment or digital space created by technologies including virtual reality and augmented reality, industry experts said.

In addition, the company plans to serve over 20 million enterprises, more than 10 million content creators, and 20,000 multi-channel networks or MCNs.

fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn