South Korean search portal Naver on Thursday unveiled three more stars to a list of K-pop singers who will join its new streaming mobile app named “V.”

Boy bands WINNER and iKON and girl group Apink are the latest stars that are confirmed to live stream their activities and closely interact with fans in Asia and elsewhere through the new video app V.

The service is scheduled to start on Aug. 1, featuring a total of 23 K-pop stars. As of Thursday, Naver has confirmed 22 of the participants including Big Bang, GOT7, Wonder Girls, 2PM and Infinite on its V campaign site (http://campaign.naver.com/v/lineup). The final group will be announced soon.

The following is a brief introduction of three K-pop bands on the list.

WINNER
(August 1)

Winner

WINNER is a K-pop boy band formed by YG Entertainment in 2014 through the reality survival show “Who Is Next: Win.” During the program, Team A and Team B, all composed of trainees under the label, vied for a chance to debut in the winner-takes-all competition. The victory went to team A, which is now the five-member group WINNER, consisting of Kang Seung-yoo, Song Min-ho, Kim Jin-woo, Lee Seung-hoon and Nam Tae-hyun. The group’s official debut EP “2014 S/S” was released in August 2014. The album’s lead track “Empty” instantly debuted at the top of the local charts. WINNER also drew global attention by topping iTunes charts in five countries and Japan’s Oricon music chart.

iKON
(August 1)

iKON

After YG Entertainment unveiled the group WINNER in 2014 through reality survival program “Win: Who Is Next: Win,” the losing team of the show, Team B, received another chance to make a debut through the survival TV show “Mix & Match.” The seven-member iKON will make its debut Sept. 15. The group is comprised of B.I, Jinhwan, Bobby, Yunhyeong, Junhoe, Donghyuk and Chanwoo.
The group was recently selected as one of the K-pop groups to watch this year by the U.S. ranking chart Billboard.


Apink
(August 6)

Apink

Apink is a six-member K-pop girl group consisting of Park Cho-rong, Yoon Bo-mi, Jung Eun-ji, Son Na-eun, Kim Nam-joo and Oh Ha-young. Signed under A Cube Entertainment, Apink debuted on April 19, 2011 with “I Don’t Know.” Since then, the group has released a number of hit tracks, such as “Mr. Chu” and “Luv.” Unlike many other girl groups that opt for a sexy image, Apink focuses on maintaining an innocent and pure image in their songs and performances. The band dropped its second full-length album “Pink Memory” on July 16 and has topped local charts with the hit song “Remember.”

Check out the list of participants below:
Naver confirms 22 stars for live streaming V app

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)