France Deeply Immersed in K-Webtoons

At the 'Amazing' festival held in Paris, France, 'True Beauty' artist Yaongi is taking photos with foreign fans.

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[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kidari Studio and NHN have issued a challenge to Naver and Kakao, the leading domestic webtoon platforms that have dominated France, the largest comic market in Europe. Domestic platforms have monopolized the top five positions in the French webtoon market, spreading their influence across the entire European market.

According to industry sources on the 28th, Kim Jung-gu, CEO of Naver Webtoon, recently expressed confidence in the success of the webtoon market during an interview with the French daily Le Figaro, emphasizing the differences from competitors. Referring to Kakao Piccoma’s French service 'Piccoma,' he said, "The difference with Piccoma is that we place great importance on original local creations," adding, "Our strategy is not simply to be a ‘publisher’ distributing webtoons, but a ‘story-tech platform’ that fosters a local creator ecosystem so that artists can connect with readers worldwide."

Naver Webtoon is also expanding into publishing. According to Le Figaro, works from Naver Webtoon such as 'Lore Olympus,' 'White Blood,' and 'Colossal' are gaining popularity, sparking fierce competition in the French publishing industry to produce webtoon volumes. Leading French publishers are currently signing contracts with popular Naver webtoons, with more than five to six titles expected to be published as volumes within the year.

Piccoma, which entered the French market in March, also expressed strong confidence in its market success. Kim Hyung-rae, CEO of Kakao Piccoma Europe, stated in an interview with a French media outlet last month that the difference from Naver Webtoon lies in "our goal as a neutral platform to showcase as much content as possible." This contrasts with Naver Webtoon’s approach of curating webtoons such as ‘Challenge Comics,’ allowing readers to access a wide variety of works.

Kim Hyung-rae also cited Piccoma’s introduction of a webtoon coin payment system that provides fair income to artists as another difference. He said, "Generally, webtoons and comics differ from other content such as audiovisual works in terms of product lifespan and consumption methods," adding, "Creators ultimately cannot be fairly compensated based on value, so subscription services like Netflix are merely bait."

The French webtoon market is dominated by domestic companies occupying the top five positions. According to data and analytics platform DataAI, the number one platform in the French webtoon market is Line Webtoon, holding an overwhelming 49% market share. The second place is the local webtoon platform Delitoon, with an 18% share, acquired by Kidari Studio in 2019. The competition for third place is fierce. Piccoma holds 10% market share in third place, closely followed by NHN’s Pocket Comics with 9% in fourth place. Fifth place is Tappytoon, operated by Contents First, with 6%, and sixth place is Toomics with 4%. Toomics was originally a domestic webtoon platform but was recently acquired by global investment firm NPX Capital.

France ranks as the world’s second-largest market for paper comics as of 2020, reflecting its strong love for comics. The growth potential of webtoons, which are just beginning to emerge, is also considered vast.

According to the Korea Creative Content Agency, the size of the European digital comics market is steadily increasing each year and is expected to account for 26.6% of the global market this year. Among European countries, France, with a comic market size of $298 million (357 billion KRW) last year including digital and paper comics, is expected to serve as a hub for the spread of digital comics in Europe.

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