Naver Webtoon starting listing on the US stock market… “It has all the characteristics of YouTube and Netflix”

Input 2021.04.21 11:27

Naver Webtoon suggested the possibility of listing on the US stock market. It is interpreted as a strategy to accelerate business expansion by using the US as an outpost in the global webtoon market.

Naver Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Park Sang-jin said, “It is inevitable to go to the world for growth, and for this, we are considering issuing dollar bonds and IPO in the US stock market,” Bloomberg News reported on the 20th (local time). did. Bloomberg said that although Naver Webtoon does not plan to raise funds right away, the listing can be reviewed only when the business in the US has settled and has gained sufficient recognition from US investors.

Naver is taking over the world’s largest web novel platform’Watpad’ earlier this year, and is making a full-fledged effort to build a content ecosystem. The idea is to expand to other types of content such as animation, drama, and movies through original intellectual property (IP) such as web novels and webtoons. If you simply add 90 million Wattpad users around the world and 72 million Naver Webtoon users, 160 million people each month consume web fiction and webtoon content through the Naver platform.

On this day, Sung-sook Han, CEO of Naver, Joon-koo Kim, and CEO of Naver Webtoon, and Allen Lau, the founder and CEO of Wattpad, introduced the vision of Naver’s content business at the North American tech conference’Collision Conference’. The Collision Conference is an event that more than 40,000 visitors attend each year, and 1250 startups and more than 1,000 investors attend.

CEO Han Sung-suk said, “Naver Webtoon and Whatpad are the platforms where the most storytelling creators and users in the world gather.” And said.

CEO Kim Joon-koo said, “The key to storytelling content is diversity,” he said. “By lowering the hurdles of creation, the diversity of works will increase, and the goal is to find and showcase super IP like gems in various works.” He said, “Naver Webtoon is evaluated as having both the characteristics of’YouTube’ and’Netflix’ as it has both areas where amateurs can act and where they can grow into professionals.” “We are applying technologies such as Montents recommendation to the service so that we can make a lot of subscribers and profits.”

CEO Allen Lau said, “Watpad and Naver Webtoon have 160 million users every month. We will be able to show movements that can increase the value of content through these two platforms.” He said, “Not a few, but content verified by users around the world will continue to come out, and secondary works based on this will continue.” “More than 90 projects are in progress.”