The Korean webtoon industry is experiencing remarkable growth, buoyed by the success of K-Drama, K-Pop, and K-movies, alongside the increasing popularity of K-Webtoons. Korean webtoon companies are emerging as major players in the global comic content market, disrupting traditional norms and captivating audiences worldwide.

Sales in the South Korean webtoon industry surged to KRW 1.83 trillion (USD 1.3 billion) in 2022, marking the fifth consecutive year of growth, according to a study by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency. Additionally, 41.2% of businesses express interest in utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) in webtoon creation, highlighting the industry’s commitment to innovation and adaptation

However, in 2023, the average annual income of webtoon artists experienced a decline, falling to KRW 98.4 million won (USD 739k), attributed to intensified competition and decreased webtoon consumption following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

Despite these challenges, Korean webtoon apps have witnessed exponential growth in ASEAN countries, the US, and European markets, with Japan emerging as a significant audience base. Naver Corp’s Line Manga and Kakao Corp’s Piccoma have become Japan’s highest-grossing mobile apps outside of gaming.

One key factor contributing to the favorability of Korean webtoons is the free-reading service offered by most apps, supplemented by in-app currency called coins. Readers have access to a diverse range of genres, including romance, thrillers, sci-fi, comedy, fantasy, and more, created by numerous talented manhwa artists.

KoreaTechDesk has identified some of the top-performing Korean webtoon companies with a worldwide fan following, highlighting the industry’s impact and potential for continued growth and innovation in the global entertainment landscape.

Lezhin Comics 

Founded in 2013, Lezhin caters to webtoon titles in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and English. It is a free-read app where fans can download comic titles on topics like love toons, fantasy, school life, action, thriller, horror, and even some adult 18+ content. Lezhin Comics boasts of over 8000 titles, making it one of the premium webtoon platform.

Lezhin’s model allows manhwa creators to monetize their work with a revenue-sharing model. Lezhin Entertainment, which owns the webtoon platform, partnered with the American online portal Anime-Planet in 2020 to provide content for English-reading audiences. Lezhin Studio, part of the startup, is also producing the first Netflix web series based on its popular webtoon, ‘D.P.’ 

Naver’s Webtoon and Line Manga 

The webtoon manhwas of Naver’s platform are the most read webcomics globally. Its Webtoon platform has surpassed the popularity of comic giants like Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and European comic book publishers for its free reading service. Webtoon has over 80 million readers per month, as per an estimate. In 2023, Naver’s third quarter sales were propelled by its content arm with Webtoon sales grew 9.3 % annually globally to KRW 440 billion (USD 333 million). 

Line Manga is Naver’s international output targeting the Japanese and U.S. market. Line Webtoon is available in English, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indonesian and two European languages – French and Spanish. Naver also recently acquired Canada-based global multi-platform entertainment company Wattpad, marking its entry into the Canadian market. NAVER also has entered the Chinese market as Dongman Manhua. In the 2022 first quarter, the story-tech platform dramatically increased users to 180 million.

For non-Korean comic fans – Naver webtoons can be savoured through Line Webtoon,  a website that offers translated versions. The official translation supports only English and Chinese, but for some popular series, languages such as Spanish, German, Thai and Italian are available.

KakaoPage

KakaoPage, a digital content marketplace, was launched in 2013 by the Korean internet giant Kakao Corp. The platform allows brands and individuals to create and distribute visual, audio and written content such as webtoons and genre fiction. KakaoPage has provided content through Tencent in China and Piccoma, a manga subscription service in Japan. Piccoma’s readership has surged in Japan threatening the domestic manga developers’ readership. In 2023 third quarter, Kako’s revenue from content increased 7% QoQ due to record-breaking quarterly transactions in Japan and the increase of views in original Korean webtoon IPs, such as Moving.

KakaoPage has 960 webtoons, online novels, movies, and dramas, each of which crossed cumulative sales of over USD 88,465. KakaoPage also acquired Neobazar, an Indonesian company publishing webtoons and games with a mission to expand and popularise Korean content in the Southeast Asia region. KakaoPage CEO Lee Jin-soo had said in an online media conference that the company has plans to further expand into the US, China, and Southeast Asia through continued investments and M&A deals and become a truly global network.

Kakao Webtoon officially launched in Indonesia in April 2022, with a rebranded version of the KakaoPage webtoon and web novel platform.  Kakao Entertainment first entered the Indonesian web comics market by acquiring local service Neobazar in December 2018.

Ridi Corp’s Manta 

Ridi Corp is a leading e-reading platform that expanded its business to digital content including webcomics. Ridi became the first domestic content startup to become a unicorn in 2022 with record sales in 2021.

Manta is Ridi’s webtoon app that caters to webcomic fans. A subscription-based webcomics launched in 2020, offering a diverse collection of themes including romance, fantasy, horror, mystery, comedy, thriller, and Manta Originals. Readers can get unlimited access to the rich content that has been curated to target each individual’s tastes for $3.99/month.

Manta plans on delivering an even more diversified webcomic experience by expanding the production of original content based on films, TV shows, and games. Ridi’s English-service digital comics platform Manta introduced to the American shores achieved app download milestone of 3 million in just eight months of service in November 2021. Manta’s most popular series “Under the Oak Tree,” based on the same name romance fantasy novel, has gained avid fans.

“With Manta, we strive to make reading webcomics a mainstream entertainment culture worldwide,” said Kisik Bae, RIDI CEO, to media during the launch of Manta. “North America is just the beginning — we’re going to expand our service so that people from all over the world can easily access and enjoy webcomic contents in their own language.”

Toomics

Toomics is another popular portal for webtoons. The Toomics webtoons are all updated weekly on set days, just like other webtoon services, and it has a special VIP subscription for early sneak peek.  Toomics features a variety of genres, including fantasy works such as Leviathan and Her Summons horror, like Gorgon and many more. The platform provides webtoons in English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Latin and of course Korean. Toomics also caters to a variety of genres – romance, horror, thriller, fantasy, sci-fi and has a good fan following in Japan and other ASEAN countries.

Toomics entered the NFT (non-fungible tokens) market in 2022 with ‘TooNFT’, a blockchain-oriented webtoon platform. TooNFT enables webtoon writers to draw in investments through the P2P (Peer To Peer) format.

In 2022, Terapin Studios, a US-based digital content producer, acquired Toomics, after securing a $93 million investment from Affirma Capital and NPX Private Equity. Terapin’s subsidiary, Copin Communications Inc., a major webtoon production studio in Korea, boasts advanced AI-driven production capabilities, creating over 100 webtoon series annually. Terapin aims to leverage Korean content’s global appeal, with plans to innovate content production across games, dramas, animations, metaverse, and NFTs.
Top of Form

Tappytoon

Tappytoon curates the latest comics and webtoons for its consumers. Users can use their app or website for high-quality content with vetted translations. The first few episodes are free with later episodes charging a small fee. Similar to other webtoons sites, users will need to unlock episodes by purchasing tokens. Alternatively, Tappytoon allows users to wait for 24 hours for another chapter to become available.

Some of the most popular manhwas of recent years from Tappytoon includes titles such as Solo Leveling and The Legend of the Northern Blade.

In 2023, Contents First, the creator of Tappytoon, forged a partnership with Penguin Random House‘s global pop-comics imprint, Inklore. This collaboration merges Korean digital comics with traditional publishing, allowing selected Contents First webtoons to be published as physical books for US and global readers.

Also Read,

• Korean webtoon creation platform Toon Square attracts investment for ‘Tooning’
• Lion Rocket Secures 6 Billion Won ($4.6 million) Investment to Propel AI Webtoon Dominance
• Real Draw Attracts $1.67 million Series A Investment for AI-based Webtoon Production
• Toonsquare Launches Innovative Webtoon Creation Software Powered by Generative AI For Global Creators
• Apple teams up with Korean webtoon startup to bring popular comics to Apple Books

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