Kakao Entertainment Participates as Representative of Domestic Webtoon Platforms at '2023 Thailand K-Expo'

Scenes from the '2023 Thailand K-Expo' held at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok, Thailand (Photo by Kakao Entertainment)

Kakao Entertainment’s global webtoon platform Kakao Webtoon Thailand participated as the representative K-webtoon platform at the comprehensive Korean Wave event, ‘2023 Thailand K-Expo,’ promoting ‘K-Webtoon.’

Kakao Entertainment took part in the ‘2023 Thailand K-Expo,’ held for two days starting from the 11th at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok, Thailand. Hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and organized by the Korea Creative Content Agency, Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation, Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, Small and Medium Business Distribution Center, and Korea International Trade Association, the ‘2023 Thailand K-Expo’ is an event featuring leading Korean companies across games, broadcasting, new technologies, webtoons, music, and more to boost the overseas expansion of Korean content. Last year, the event was held in Vietnam. This year, over 25,000 visitors attended the expo.

In particular, the Kakao Webtoon booth, designed with a photo zone concept utilizing IPs popular in Thailand, was bustling with local comic fans. The K-webtoons featured at the booth included ‘Necromancer School’s Summoning Genius,’ which surpassed 1 million local views shortly after its launch, and ‘MAVE: Another World,’ a webtoon sharing the universe with the global virtual idol group MAVE:. Additionally, a sticker photo booth featuring webtoon character IPs was set up, and on the other side, Kakao Friends’ main characters were exhibited to introduce Kakao’s representative IPs to visitors.

Kakao Entertainment’s premium IPs discovered locally also received enthusiastic attention. Webtoons introduced included a remake of ‘Love Destiny,’ originally a novel and currently airing as a top Thai drama, and ‘How to Make Praapai Fall in Love,’ based on literary works by Sunthon Phu, known as the ‘Shakespeare of Thailand.’ Furthermore, a newly adapted webtoon based on the novel of the recently popular local drama ‘I Feel You Linger in the Air’ was unveiled for the first time on the event’s opening day, the 11th.

Kakao Webtoon Thailand also participated as the sole official webtoon sponsor at ‘Thailand Comic Con 2022,’ one of Southeast Asia’s largest cultural events, last November. Through IPs such as ‘Solo Leveling,’ ‘The Villain’s Only Ending is Death,’ and ‘Inaccessible Lady,’ they engaged with Thai fans and have been leading efforts to actively promote the value and potential of K-webtoons locally.

Hyun Yang-won, head of Kakao Entertainment’s Thailand branch, said, “This Korean Wave expo was a meaningful event that confirmed the passionate interest of Thai fans in Kakao Entertainment’s webtoon IPs and that webtoons have become a central pillar of Korean Wave content locally. Moving forward, we will continue to expand the webtoon base focusing on not only Kakao Entertainment’s global IPs but also locally discovered IPs in Thailand.”

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