[Click eStock] "D&C Media's Scale Also UP with Webtoon and Web Novel Growth"

Steady Growth in Overseas Business... Surpasses Half of Total Share

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] Riding on the growth of the webtoon and web novel content industry, D&C Media, which holds the largest number of domestic authors and content, is rapidly expanding its scale. It is expected that additional growth will be steep due to aggressive overseas expansion by content platform companies.

On the 21st, IBK Investment & Securities forecasted that D&C Media will record sales of 68.7 billion KRW and operating profit of 16.6 billion KRW this year. This represents a 19.1% increase in sales and a 26.7% increase in operating profit compared to last year. The company has already posted solid results since the first quarter of this year. In Q1, sales reached 16.6 billion KRW and operating profit 4 billion KRW, up 31.7% and 50.3% respectively compared to the same period last year.

Researcher Kyungjun Moon of IBK Investment & Securities explained, "As the webtoon and web novel industries continue to grow, D&C Media’s scale is rising proportionally. In particular, aggressive overseas expansion by content platform companies is gradually increasing D&C Media’s overseas sales ratio."

In fact, D&C Media’s overseas sales in Q1 this year amounted to 5.8 billion KRW, accounting for 54.3% of total sales. This is a significant increase compared to 28.4% last year and 12.5% in 2019. Overseas sales for the entire year are expected to exceed 20 billion KRW.

The increasing share of the e-book business is also a positive factor. Researcher Moon stated, "The e-book business share has risen to 89.9%, while the paper book business share is continuously declining. This is naturally adjusting as digital content consumption increases." Given the sharp rise in digital content consumption both domestically and internationally, the e-book sales share is expected to exceed 92% this year.

Researcher Moon predicted that the valuation premium of D&C Media will continue, considering the increasing demand for webtoon and web novel content and the aggressive investment by platform companies. He explained, "D&C Media is a webtoon and web novel specialized content provider (CP) with the largest number of authors and content in Korea, so the business growth will continue based on its competitive content portfolio. It is also a positive factor that strategic partner KakaoPage holds a 23.13% stake in D&C Media."

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