Webtoons Industry in South Korea Hoping to Catch K-Wave

It’s possible that viewers in other parts of the world fell in love with the Korean television programmes “All of Us Are Dead,” “Itaewon Class,” and “Dr. Brain” without ever realising that these shows were adapted from webtoons, often known as comics that are published online.

The Webtoons Industry in South Korea Is Hoping to Catch the K-Wave

A group of Korean corporations is currently getting ready to ensure that webtoons will be the next big thing in the worldwide K-culture takeover.

In the early years of the new century,

Yahoo and the Korean internet site Daum began publishing news and cartoons that were exclusive to the online. This was the beginning of the phenomenon known as “webtoons.” It served a purpose very similar to that of printed newspapers that had daily comic strips, but it did not cost anything to use. As a result, it was quite effective at attracting new readers and keeping existing ones.

In 2003, “Love Story,”

This is which was produced by Kang Full, is considered by many to be the first webtoon ever made. He is still going strong and is responsible for the intellectual property that will be used in the upcoming series “Moving” on Disney+. These adaptations of his webtoons have been made into a total of seven movies.

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“Smartphones made this into a business with a potential for profit,”

This says Charlie Park, who today runs the worldwide webtoon business at Kakao Entertainment, which emerged from a webtoon firm (called Podotree) founded in 2010. Kakao Entertainment was founded in 2010 as a webtoon startup. “And once we had established that this was a viable business in Korea, we turned our attention to Japan, which, thanks to its existing audience for manga, seemed like fertile ground.”

According to estimations provided by the Korean Creative Content Agency (KOCCA),

The market in Korea reached the revenue milestone of one billion dollars annually in the year 2020. Since then, it has expanded even further, fueled in part by the implementation of pandemic lockdowns. Over 80 million people are actively using Naver’s platform on a monthly basis, which led to a gross merchandise volume of 900 million dollars in 2021 for webtoons.

Given that the number is greater than the whole population of South Korea, it would appear that the push to increase exports is successful. According to the data provided by KOCCA, Japan is expected to account. This is for close to one third of all webtoon exports in the year 2020, followed by mainland China with 23 percent. The percentage for North America was 16%, while the percentage for other parts of East Asia, mainly Thailand, was another 23%.

Today,

The industry is led by platforms that are spin-offs of Korean technology giants such as Naver Webtoon (Naver), Kakao Entertainment (Kakao), and Nate (a subsidiary of the telecommunications company SK Global).

Platforms are in charge of marketing and income generation, and they collaborate with individual creators, investors, and content providers (who are effectively mini-publishing corporations) to produce original material. In some instances, they offer technological tools that assist with drawing, like templates and shading aids. This contributes to the cost of production remaining at rock-bottom levels, which in turn helps maintain high profit margins.

Nevertheless,

The market is unstable and dynamic, and it presents a variety of distinct opportunities for businesses to pursue. These include regular subscriptions, Kakao’s favoured “wait or pay” method. Which enables users to either wait for the next episode or pay to read the next one in advance, and micropayments for individual episodes. The “wait or pay” system allows users to choose between waiting for the next episode and paying to read it in advance.

Terapin Studios, a part of the United States-Korean media investment company NPX Capital. This recently paid a total of $160 million to purchase Toomics, a second-tier platform that has over 22 million monthly active users and over 60 million subscriptions. Toomics also has a total user base of over 100 million. Toomics views the international markets as having enormous potential and believes that they offer a more level playing field. The company currently offers its webcomics in English, Chinese, and a few languages spoken in Europe.

“They offer vast untapped audiences that are now increasingly interested in Korean pop culture. This also have lower client acquisition costs than the more crowded Japanese and Korean markets.” says Samuel Hwang, the founder and CEO of NPX. “They offer vast untapped audiences that are increasingly interested in Korean pop culture.”

Kakao claim:

Despite the fact that Park, of Kakao, claims that the market for webtoons is still in the growing phase, which indicates that organic expansion is more likely than expansion through corporate M&A agreements in the short future, the industry has already witnessed one of the more revealing examples of corporate engagement. The online literature platform Wattpad, situated in Canada, was acquired by Naver in 2021 for a total price of $600 million. Wattpad’s online authors have contributed to the creation of several films, such as “After” and “The Kissing Booth.” The two businesses are now unified under the name Wattpad Webtoon Studios. Which is led by Aron Levitz. At the time of the transaction. Aron Levitz stated that the deal was centred on “the next hundred years of literature.”

The potential to make films, series, and games with already proven audiences has reverberated throughout the webtoon industry. An unnamed South Korean production business is collaborating with streaming service Netflix on an adaptation of Toomics’ “Black Knight.” However, in upcoming works, we anticipate Toomics will be involved in some capacity, as Hwang explains.

According to Park, “We describe ourselves more as a’story company’

This is than we do as a comics firm.” “That’s because, whether you’re talking about webcomics, books, or songs. Story is the thing that connects all of those different mediums together. And at this very moment, webcomics are conveying stories that are fresh, bright, and full of youth.

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