Soul App Shows Significant Commercial Potential, Soul App Founder Zhang Lu Addresses User Experience

With the development of technology, ‘metaverse’ has been in the spotlight. Recently, Analysis Group, one of the largest international economics consulting firms released a report investigating the potential commercial profits of metaverse and predicted it would have a contribution to the global GDP of $3.01 trillion in 2031. When the era of metaverse is approaching, Soul App, which aims to build a social metaverse for young generations, has presented significant commercial potential.

Zhang Lu, the founder, and CEO of SOUL, tried to separate the physical world from the virtual world when designing the prototype of SOUL. During registration, every user is suggested to create their own personalized avatars, which give them brand new virtual identities. They can express themselves freely and establish interest-based social connections.

In March 2021, SOUL announced that it would build a social metaverse for young generations, which took the lead in the industry. Later, SOUL launched the self-developed NAWA engine, which is designed to meet the increasing social demands of Gen Z.

Currently, more than 200 million users have chosen to join the social metaverse brought by Soul App, in which Gen Zers accounted for over 74.2%. SOUL’s monthly active users have reached 40 million, and every user would open SOUL 21.5 times per day on average. SOUL has become a social networking platform that young generations prefer to gather. 

Meanwhile, SOUL kept strengthening the construction of its content ecology. SOUL encouraged users to create high-quality authentic and fascinating content by providing a variety of fun, powerful and creative tools for users to share day-to-day lives and express themselves. With gamified features, SOUL also built an engaging and immersive environment to boost user interaction.

As a result, users are glad to share whatever they want on SOUL in various forms. There is an increase of 5 million pieces of user-generated content every day on this content-friendly platform. The monthly active user interaction ratio is as high as 84.5%, while more than 100,000 new topics are created every month. Young people enjoy expressing their authentic personalities on SOUL and sometimes they can draw inspiration from each other’s creativity and generate more original and fascinating content later. Such content ecology breeds a new business model – the creator economy.

For instance, Wang Lei, a user and content creator on SOUL, makes a living by designing avatars and earns an average monthly salary of about 45,000 yuan ($7,080). He sells original designs of different avatars to users who would like to pay for their be-likes. It is difficult for content creators to turn their creativity into tangible assets and communicate with their target audience in the real world. Consumers also find it challenging to get and pay for their preferred content. Metaverse simplifies everything by acting as a bridge between content creators and consumers. 

Users usually need to pay between 180, 300, and 420 Soul coins for these avatars, which is roughly comparable to 30 yuan, 50 yuan, and 70 yuan, respectively. The limited versions are more expensive, costing around 15,000 Soul coins each.

Besides, based on avatar, SOUL developed a new innovative marketing method. SOUL has designed an avatar for Chevrolet according to its brand features and cultural connotation, which is Chevrolet’s first 3D Avatar IP image. With advanced motion capture technology, SOUL will enable the Chevrolet 3D Avatar to show up at the Beijing Auto Show. 

(Chevrolet’s first 3D Avatar IP)

Cooperated with the game Peace Elite, SOUL launched the first CNY marketing in the industry. They jointly carried out a card collection activity through NFT, attracting millions of users to try the game. All these successful crossover collaborations prove SOUL’s strong commercial potential.

The development of metaverse provides numerous business possibilities. Industry insiders believe more capital will be invested in this promising field and SOUL, as a pioneer in social metaverse, will realize substantial commercial success. SOUL founder Zhang Lu was invited to share her plan for future development in a media interview. She addressed that SOUL would continue focusing on optimizing user experiences to bring more immersive social experiences for young generations.