K-Webtoons Popular in Japan... Suseong Webtoons Expected to Perform Well

The popularity of Korean webtoons is steadily increasing in Japan.

Suseong Webtoon’s subsidiary, Toomics, is expanding its presence in the Japanese webtoon market. Toomics, which has accumulated 1.75 million members in Japan, signed a webtoon supply contract with Amazon Japan’s digital content distribution platform, Amazon Fliptoon, on the 21st of last month.

Suseong Webtoon plans to sequentially distribute Toomics’ works in the Japanese webtoon market, which has a large market size and profitability. The company aims to enter not only Amazon’s Fliptoon service in Japan but also major Japanese platforms such as DMM and Shimoa, expanding into the Japanese digital comics market. They plan to showcase a total of 30 works within this year and serialize 60 works by the end of next year. They expect to expand local distribution channels in Japan and establish a stable revenue structure.

Toomics explained that it is experiencing the popularity of K-webtoons in Japan. Naver Webtoon’s Japanese service, Line Manga, ranked first in total sales across all Japanese app markets combined in August and September. It also recorded an all-time high of 22.5 million monthly active users (MAU). Webtoon Entertainment, the parent company of Naver Webtoon, saw its sales in the Japanese market in the third quarter of this year increase by 25% compared to the previous year, setting a new record.

According to the annual report on the size of the Japanese manga market published by the Japan Publishing Association and the Publishing Science Institute, digital manga sales account for 70% of the total.

Yu Young-hak, CEO of Suseong Webtoon, said, "Since entering the Japanese market, we have been continuously monitoring and gathering local feedback to review and reinforce our offerings," adding, "We will continue to sequentially distribute more works."

Suseong Webtoon is pursuing partnerships with other overseas platforms to expand its scale. They plan to sign contracts with PODO Manga in China, affiliated with Kakao, Tapas in North America, and Kakao Webtoon Global in Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia. Suseong Webtoon will increase its stake in Toomics from the current 40% to the 70% range to strengthen management control.

Toomics is a webtoon platform serviced in 11 languages including English, Chinese, and Spanish, with 60 million members worldwide. Recently, it has continued stable revenue growth through the rising popularity of K-webtoons in the global market and the establishment of a ‘subscription service’ model.

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