In China, virtual idols, artificially created popular digital celebrities, are garnering massive fan base among the country’s millennials and Gen Zs, who grew up in an increasingly digitized world and have therefore cultivated a natural fondness for virtual content.

According to a report published by iResearch, a Chinese market research and consulting company, in 2022, the market size of the country’s virtual idol industry came close to 1.3 billion yuan ($181 million). However, the industry has not seen any game-changing technological leaps or surges in user growth since 2020. Virtual idols remain a niche market targeting only a small group of fans, who are mostly students and young professionals and therefore relatively limited in how much they can spend.

To break through the bottleneck and reach a wider audience, the country’s virtual idols must extend their influence beyond the domestic fan base. One way to go global is to collaborate with Chinese short video and online game platforms, which are becoming increasingly popular worldwide. As each country has its own unique culture, when tapping into a foreign market, the developers of these digital avatars should pay due respect to local customs and taboos. Kept within certain parameters, and these virtual characters can become a new cultural brand.

(Global Times, June 13)