Lotte Home Shopping's Bellygom debuts in Taiwan, Japan

South Korea's Lotte Home Shopping announced on Wednesday that its character Bellygom will enter the Taiwanese and Japanese content market,following Thailand.

Bellygom, the pink Teddy bear character of Lotte Home Shopping, enjoys popularity among international consumers.

The company said that it signed on June 19 a license agreement with Taiwan's largest toy distributor, LE International, to utilize the intellectual property (IP) of Bellygom.

Under the agreement, the two companies will collaborate on developing related products, entering offline stores, and operating local social media and marketing in Taiwan.

In the second half of this year, they plan to sell Bellygom merchandise in Funbox, Taiwan's largest toy chain, in cooperation with LE International.

In April, Lotte Home Shopping signed a license agreement with Lotte Holdings for Bellygom's activities in Japan.

Following this, from July 3 to 5, Bellygom debuts as Lotte Group's representative character at "Licensing Japan 2024," Japan's largest content expo.

Bellygom first entered the international market in Oct. last year through a license agreement with Thailand's TACC, a manufacturing and distribution specialist.

Lotte Home Shopping reported that Bellygom gained 20,000 social media subscribers in Thailand within six months.

In the latter half of this year, Lotte Home Shopping plans to launch over 20 local license products in collaboration with Thailand's largest retailer, Charoen Pokphand Group, and L'Oréal Group's beauty brand Garnier.

Developed by Lotte Home Shopping in 2018, Bellygom has gained over 1.7 million social media followers and has over 100 merchandise items released. 

The cumulative IP business sales have exceeded 20 billion won ($14.4 million). Lotte Home Shopping projects that this year's related sales will increase by 20% compared to last year.

Write to Hyun-jin Ra at raraland@hankyung.com