Image credit: The Korea Times
Naver and Kakao are seeing massive success in manga powerhouse Japan, with their online comics generating huge sales there last year. The two companies have reported to receive favorable responses in the Japanese comics market by localizing content using popular intellectual properties (IPs) from Korea.
Naver Webtoon said sales in Japan surpassed 100 billion yen ($675 million) from January to November of 2023. The company also claims that as of last December, Line Manga, its Japanese service platform, was the only comic app there with more than 10 million monthly active users (MAUs). In the overseas market, Naver Webtoon said its cross-border strategy of translating and sharing content from one region to another is paying off handsomely.
Naver Webtoon’s spokesperson said:
“More than 50 percent of Naver Webtoon’s content is being read by people overseas. Through our cross-border platform strategy, not only can Japanese readers enjoy a variety of works from Naver Webtoon, but readers worldwide can also meet original works from Japan.”
Thanks to that strategy, Naver Webtoon has more than 40 online comics with over 1 billion views worldwide and 108 titles with over 500 million views as of 2022.
The key driver of Naver Webtoon’s huge success in Japan is the popularity in Japan of the online comic “Teenage Mercenary,” which is very popular in Korea. The online comic surpassed annual sales of 1 billion yen in Japan last year. Naver Webtoon also shows strong dominance in North America, Europe and Southeast Asia.
Kakao Webtoon also announced that their Japanese platform, Piccoma, surpassed sales of 100 billion yen in Japan last year, as popular works in Korea received good responses in Japan. The company stated:
“Last year’s sales volume increased more than seven times compared to 2019 before the pandemic. The strategy of providing not only Japanese comics in e-book format, but also online comics produced in Korea and China, tailored to local reader preferences, worked well.”
Particularly, the online comic “Doctor Elise” became popular in Japan based on its popularity in Korea. Mobile data research institute DATA.AI, Naver and Kakao are currently competing for first and second place in the Japanese online comics market, maintaining around 100 million MAU.
Navkiran Dhaliwal is a seasoned content writer with 10+ years of experience. When she's not writing, she can be found cooking up a storm or spending time with her dog, Rain.
