Naver Webtoon unveiled its achievements to mark the 5th anniversary of its spin-off on May 2, 2022. Naver Webtoon was spun off in May 2017 after Naver’s in-house independent company ( CIC, Company-In-Company ) in 2015. Naver Webtoon has expanded its ‘Story-tech’ platform model for the past five years, proving its success in South Korea and the global market.
In particular, Naver Webtoon’s unique platform model, which has both an ‘amateur content model’ and an ‘original content model’ officially serialized on the webtoon platform, is showing results overseas. The number of monthly active users ( MAU ) of the Story-tech platform built by Naver Webtoon has dramatically increased from 46 million at the time of spin-off in 2017 to 180 million as of March 2022.
The story-tech platform caters to different cultural audiences
Naver Webtoon entered the foreign market unfamiliar with webtoons and is currently providing services in 10 languages around the world, including Korea, Japan, North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Naver’s Webtoon (Korea), LINE Webtoon ( Southeast Asia), WEBTOON (North America, Latin America, Europe) and LINE MANGA (Japan) have 82 million monthly users.
In particular, applying the amateur promotion system and competitions to each culture and continuously discovering local creators has developed a ‘local creator ecosystem’ to overcome cultural barriers. About 6 million creators are active on Naver Webtoon’s global platform and Wattpad, a Canadian storytelling platform acquired by Naver.
Naver Webtoon has improved the creative environment by taking the lead in developing AI technologies in the content domain, such as ‘AI Painter’ that automatically colorizes and ‘Toon Raider’ that monitors illegal distribution copies. The cumulative number of content works has reached one billion. In addition, Naver Webtoon’s web novel service, based on its strengths, has grown into a key IP in the global entertainment market. In the CEO message to commemorate the 5th anniversary to employees, Naver Webtoon CEO Kim Jun-koo said, “The platform created by Naver Webtoon is ‘Global No.1 Storytech platform. It has gained the status of the first global player sought by major companies in the global entertainment industry.”
