Last Year, Domestic Webtoon Industry Revenue Reached 640 Billion KRW... Average Annual Income of Artists 48.41 Million KRW

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] Last year, the domestic webtoon industry's revenue was approximately 640 billion KRW, an increase of more than 170 billion KRW compared to the previous year.

According to the '2020 Webtoon Business Survey' and '2020 Webtoon Artist Survey' published on the 23rd by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency, the 2019 webtoon industry revenue was estimated at about 640 billion KRW, an increase of 173.7 billion KRW (37.3%) from the previous year.

In the same year, the number of new webtoon works was 2,076, a decrease from 2,853 the previous year, but the number of 'new exclusive works' that can be read on a single platform increased to 1,617 from 974 the previous year.

In the first half of 2020, 60.5% of companies reported an increase in domestic sales, and 71.9% reported an increase in overseas sales. Companies expecting revenue growth over the next year accounted for 37.2%, while 30.2% expected no impact.

The average annual income of webtoon artists who had experience serializing within the past year was 48.41 million KRW. Artists who serialized throughout the entire year earned an average annual income of 74.63 million KRW, about 25 million KRW more.

The main source of income from webtoon creation was manuscript fees, accounting for 59.5%. This was followed by revenue sharing (RS) at 55.7%, and minimum guarantee (MG) at 44.7%.

The gender ratio of webtoon artists was 60.8% female and 39.2% male, with those aged 30 or younger making up 83.1% of the total. The most common debut period was between 2015 and 2017, accounting for 40.9%. It was found that 69.9% of webtoon artists work on both writing and drawing.

The difficulties experienced due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic were ranked as follows: ▲ difficulty in conducting on-site work (51.2%) ▲ issues with overseas expansion (46.5%) ▲ burden of tax and four major social insurance payments (18.6%) ▲ disruption in personnel management plans (16.3%).

This survey was conducted through questionnaires and interviews with 43 webtoon businesses (platforms and agencies) and 635 webtoon artists.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.