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| Kim Joon-ku, CEO of Naver Webtoon, speaks during a press conference held in San Francisco, Jan. 17. Courtesy of Naver Webtoon |
Naver Webtoon, Korea's leading webtoon platform, will expand its profit sharing model to bring in more creators to its service and diversify sources of income in the global market, its chief executive said Tuesday.
The webtoon arm of portal operator Naver said its "page profit sharing" (PPS) program that shares profits from paid-content on its webtoon and webnovel pages has contributed to securing steady incomes for creators and expanding the genre's presence in the global market since its launch in 2013.
"We created the PPS program to help creators focus on their works under a more stable environment and develop the webtoon genre as a competitive industry in the global market," CEO Kim Joon-ku said during a press conference at Naver Webtoon's office in the high-tech district of Pangyo in Seongnam, just south of Seoul.
"I am glad that the webtoon genre, which originated in South Korea, has become a global industry thanks to creators' efforts for quality works and Naver Webtoon's investment over the past decade," he said.
Webtoons, a type of digital comics originated from South Korea and usually meant to be read on smartphones, have seen their popularity reaching outside their home base and hooked international readers in Asia, North America and Europe.
Inspired by a wide fan base and creative subjects, a number of webtoons have been adapted into Korean drama series on streaming platforms and local TV channels with success in recent years.
According to Naver Webtoon, transactions through the PPS program were valued at 2.25 trillion won ($1.69 billion) in 2022, marking an astronomical rise from 23.2 billion in 2013.
Among content run on its webtoon and web novel platforms at home and abroad, 904 works exceeded 100 million won of transactions last year, while 136 posted over 1 billion won and five generated over 10 billion won.
Behind the explosive growth was Korean content's rising popularity in the global market.
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| This image provided by Naver Webtoon shows the webtoon service's transaction value of its profit sharing program (PPS), which shares profits from webtoon and webnovels with their creators. Yonhap |
Naver Webtoon said it has 85.6 million monthly subscribers globally, and 52 percent of its content posted sales abroad.
In 2022, 40 works published on Naver Webtoon attracted over 1 billion page views, while 108 drew 500 million views.
Buoyed by its success, the company said it will rebrand "page profit share" to "partners profit share" to generate revenue not only from webtoons and webnovels but also in games, videos, books and merchandise goods by utilizing on their intellectual properties (IP).
"While the PPS program focused on sharing profits from webtoon and webnovel pages with creators in the past, revenues from various IP businesses based on the original works will continue to grow," Kim said. "Naver Webtoon decided to change the brand name to reflect its plan to provide creators with wider business opportunities." (Yonhap)
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