As a result of K-Webtoon’s enthusiastic activity in the global market, it was found that it occupied the popularity chart of the US Google Play comics app.
According to related industries on the 10th, Korean companies occupied the top 5th place in the US Google Play cartoon app popularity chart on the 7th.
■ Promote Korean companies… K-webtoon ranks all-kill
Naver Webtoon took first place. Naver Webtoon has secured 10 million monthly unique users in 5 years since its first challenge to the US market in 2014. iOS also showed remarkable growth in the US market, including being counted as a popular entertainment app for ages 16 to 24. This year, it announced the acquisition of Whatpad, a web fiction platform, and is starting to secure webtoons and web fiction contents that have been verified by Gen Zers around the world. Naver Webtoon said it expects to reinforce the content and expand the secondary IP business in the global market by visualizing it in the future.
Second place was Lidi’s global webtoon subscription service’Manta’, which was released in November last year. Manta achieved remarkable achievements, ranking second in the US Google Play comics app popularity chart within three months of its launch. ‘Manta’, which entered the North American market in November of last year, is a service that allows you to enjoy webtoon contents of various genres that customers around the world will like for a monthly flat rate. Recently, it has been receiving a good response by releasing the webtoon of the mega hit’Under the Tree of Life’ of RediBooks.
“The monthly subscription model adopted by Manta is a method that has already proven its business competitiveness in global content companies such as Netflix and Disney Plus, and will continue to provide service competitiveness by providing webtoon content through a subscription method,” said a representative from Lydy.
In the 3rd to 5th place, NHN’s webtoon service’Pocket Comics’, Content First’s’Tapetoon’, and Kakao’s American digital cartoon platform’Tapas’ were also listed.
Pocket Comics is an English version of COMico created by NHN to target the English-speaking world. NHN Japan, a Japanese subsidiary, launched it in July last year through its subsidiary, NHN Comico. The company is actively targeting the webtoon market in English-speaking countries, mainly in North America, through Pocket Comics.
Content First, ranked 4th, is also focusing on targeting the global market through’Tapetoon’. In particular, it is dedicated to providing only Korean webtoons and delivering them lively in local languages.
Kakao is also expanding its influence by releasing its super IP on the U.S. digital comics platform’Tapas’ one after another.
■ K-webtoon continues to grow… As the global webtoon market is in its infancy, the growth potential is endless
K-webtoon sales are steadily rising. According to a survey by the Korea Creative Content Agency, the number of companies that answered that their overseas sales of webtoons increased in 2020 increased 71.9% compared to the same period last year.
The market outlook is also bright. According to a foreign digital content market survey published last year by the Information and Communication Industry Promotion Agency, the digital comics market is predicted to reach $3.272 billion by 2023. This is because cartoon consumption through mobile devices is expanding and the global popularity of the webtoon format is gradually spreading.
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In addition, the number of subscription service users and the rise in the value of IP based on comics are also factors driving the market growth. The U.S. market is projected to grow to $119 million by 2023. In fact, digital manga subscriptions have increased since 2018, and the demand for original animations is also increasing.
An industry insider said, “K-webtoon companies that have successfully settled in the global market are preparing to take a higher leap in their own way.” I do” he said.