Vietnam’s Yeah1 Group announced on Thursday that the company has successfully acquired 100 percent of ScaleLab, a US-based YouTube multi-channel network, for US$20 million.

In a note to shareholders dated January 8, Yeah1 said it has opened a term deposit account worth VND274.95 billion (nearly $12 million) to guarantee a loan of $10 million to finance the transaction, Deal Street Asia reported.

Multi-Channel Networks (MCN) are third-party service providers that affiliate with multiple YouTube channels to offer services that may include audience development, content programming, creator collaborations, digital rights management, monetization, and sales.

According to Niraan De Silva - Executive Board Member & Group Strategy of Yeah1, the acquisition was meant as ‘leverage’ for the Vietnamese company to grow its influence in Latin America, which accounts for just 26.3 percent of the total advertising budget, considerably lower than the global average of 43.5 percent.

Yeah1 is currently Vietnam’s largest digital media ecosystem, operating more than 1,254 YouTube channels with a combined 3.9 billion monthly views from more than 202 million subscribers on the video-sharing platform.

An event by Yeah1. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Meanwhile, ScaleLab is an MCN with 1,750 channels of YouTube influencers who collectively boast more than 400 million subscribers and three billion monthly views.

The acquisition will bring Yeah1’s YouTube channel count to 3,000, with 610 million subscribers and 6.9 billion views per month.

Niraan De Silva said Yeah1 will take advantage of the low-cost of content production in Vietnam to export more content to markets in other parts of the world while bringing YouTube influencers in ScaleLab’s network closer to Asia’s market.

Yeah1 Group purchased multi-channel networks Thailand’s SPRINGme and France’s Something Big in 2018.

In June of the same year, it became the first ever Vietnamese entertainment company to list on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange.

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