See the Korean comic industry from the platform, content, users, IP, and piracy

See the Korean comic industry from the platform, content, users, IP, and piracy

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See the Korean comic industry from the platform, content, users, IP, and piracy


Recently, the Korea Cultural Industry Promotion Agency released the "2018 Korean Manga Industry White Paper" (hereinafter referred to as "White Paper") and conducted a survey on the operation of 7172 cartoon companies in Korea in the first half of 2017 to 2018.



According to the White Paper, the sales of the Korean comics industry reached 6.308 billion yuan in 2017, an increase of 10.9% compared with 2016. However, the number of comic companies (7,172) decreased by 1,348 compared to 2013 (8520). The number of comic companies continues to decrease, but sales are rising year by year, which is inseparable from the opportunities and profits brought by the rapid growth of the online comics industry.

Korean comic industry user portraits and spending habits

Comics is one of the main leisure activities for Koreans, and 56.6% read comics every week. A broad audience base has become a fertile ground for the development of the Korean comic industry.

Korean users are used to watching comics between 8 pm and 12 am, as the main form of entertainment after the end of each day. And spend more time watching comics on weekends.

These comic book users are almost all webcomic users, NaverWebtoon, Kakao Page, comics websites and YouTube are their commonly used portals and applications. In Korea, comic books and comic magazines also have a certain audience, but this is a small group.



The comic platform selected by NetMan users is mainly Naver Webtoon, Daum Webtoon, Kakao Page, LezhinComics and so on. When choosing a comic book, the user will first consider the recognition, storyline, price, genre and comic style of the work.

From the perspective of genre, funny, innocent, fantasy, plot, action, and horror comics are most popular among users. Funny comics are the most popular genre in both ages, both male and female. In addition to funny comics, girls prefer pure love movies and plot comics, while boys prefer action and fantasy comics.

The average monthly expenditure of users on the comic the platform is mainly concentrated below 30 yuan (5,000 won), accounting for 39.6% of all users. In addition to the online payment of the online platform, more then half of the users will purchase the offline version because they have watched the electronic version and want to collect the paper version.

Relatively popular online comics, there are very few paper comics users. The average monthly expenditure for this part of the user is mainly between 60 and 180 yuan (10,000 to 30,000 won). The main channels for obtaining paper comics are comic houses, book bars, book rental houses, and libraries. Most of the most popular paper comics in Korea are classic comics with long serializations, such as One Piece, Conan and Naruto.

Korean comic industry business management

In several industries such as comic publishing, web production, and comic book retail rental, comic publishing is the main force of the Korean comic industry, accounting for 58% of the total industry sales. The comic book retail and rental industry have the largest number of human resources and enterprises, providing 40% of the industry's sales, but per capita, sales are too low, and production efficiency is not high.



In contrast, online comics have the fewest number of companies and practitioners, but his average business sales amounted to 131.152 million, second only to the comics publishing industry. Netman enterprises have greatly reduced labor costs by using the Internet, and production efficiency are very high.

As can be seen from the growth data from 2015 to 2017, the the number of comic book retail and rental industries has been decreasing. On the another hand, with the increasing demand for online comics, the number of online comics companies in 2017 increased by 14.0% compared with last year, and the the annual growth rate of industry sales reached 28%, and the growth momentum was strong.

In 2017, the number of Korean online comics platforms increased to 61, with a total of 9266 works and a total of 6,093 authors. In all comic platforms, Kakao surpassed all platforms by 770 million in sales. However, from the user usage survey results, Naver Webtoon uses 81.1% more than other platforms and is most popular with users.

Internet comics overseas output overview

Korean comics overseas export business is booming.

From 2015 to 2017, sales of Korean comics in Japan, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe are increasing year by year. Japan, Europe and Southeast Asia are the main export destinations. Among them, in 2017, Europe's export sales reached 76 million yuan, and Japan and Southeast Asia markets exceeded 67 million yuan and 48 million yuan respectively.

But for three consecutive years, Korean comics' output to the Chinese market has declined at an annual rate of 4.3%, and the Chinese market accounted for only 4% of its overseas income. In 2017, Han Man’s income in the Chinese market was less than 10 million yuan.

Since the opening of the payment model in 2012, Korean online comics have expanded rapidly. From 2012, the number of online comics in less than 1,000 has risen to more than 7,000 in 2017.

The Korean online comics started with Japan and built globalization, and entered Asia, North America, and Europe, and achieved good results.

As the focus of the global digital comics market, South Korea's online comics platform has played an important role: Line Webtoon, Lezhin Comics, Comico, and other Korean online comics platforms have attracted much attention as a powerful Korean content. In particular, Lezhin Comics ranked first in the comics category bestseller list in the first quarter of 2018 (based on Google Play app settlement).

Not only in Asia but Lezhin Comics and Line Webtoon also rank among the top two in the comics downloads and bestsellers of application stores in Europe, the US, the Middle East, and many other regions.

Naver has been providing online comics services since July 2014. Its global platform Line Webtoon currently provides services in more than 70 countries and regions, with 2,049 works, ranking first in the online comics market in Indonesia, Thailand, and Taiwan... The average monthly online users reached 46 million (June 2018).

Daum, Kakao uses the company's online comics services, Daum Webtoon and Kakao Page platform and serial works to try to push the works and platforms to the world and expand overseas. The two companies have established cooperative relationships with China Tencent Animation and North American Internet and online novel platforms. South Korea's various platforms are planning to convert online comics IP into games, movies, TV series, performances, and other secondary works, and the IP value is expected to rise further.

Internet comics comprehensive entertainment

In September 2018, Kakao Page invested a total of 214.6 million in Daewon Culture, Heshan Culture Society and SMC in Korea to support IP original development, and planned IP overseas export and second copyright cooperation.

On the one hand, these three comic companies have excellent editorial lineups and are closely related to the Japanese Internet industry, and can support the original production and circulation of Korean comics IP. On the other hand, Kakao Page's acquisition of shares in the three comic companies maybe an announcement that Kakao Page will be transformed from a comic circulation company to an entertainment company that uses IP to develop a second work. According to the report, this change will also intensify the the competitive situation between Kakao Page and Naver Webtoon.

Kakao Page's actions reflect the latest operations of the Korean comic industry. The recent trend is no longer a pure copyright sale, but an investment based on copyright and personal involvement in production. Instead of selling IP to a film production company, it is acquiring or setting up a film production company to directly produce a webcomic original movie.

Acquire or set up an acting planning company to let the actor perform, let the singer sing the OST, and promote it through the company or related company platform. The competition between the network comic IP original and the secondary product market will expand the scale of the online the comics industry and promote the comprehensive entertainment of the online comics industry.

"The transformation of the online comics market from the content production and distribution center market to the IP market" is the development direction of the Korean comic industry. Take Naver Webtoon as an example. Naver Webtoon is a branch of Naver founded in 2017. Naver has contributed 643 million to Naver Webtoon so far (January 2018).

Naver Webtoon, which received strong capital support, and Snow (another subsidiary of Naver) jointly funded the video content production company Playlist. In the same year, it established the online comics and network animation production company Life in Comics. Moreover, in August 2018, a film production company studio N centered on the Internet comic IP was established.

After the online drama "Love Playboy", Playlist has also produced "Internet" such as "Anti" and "Female High School Students". Life is Comics, an animation production company that serves Naver Webtoon mobile apps. It has created an original online animation "Love One Day Before". The film studio N is called "Bridge Company", which promotes the adaptation of Naver Webtoon's original comic IP into a movie or TV series production, and also plays a role in planning production and investment distribution according to the situation. From then on, you can see the comprehensive entertainment studio creation system built by Naver Webtoon around Comic IP.

A studio system built around the original and secondary creation of comic IP has greatly promoted the secondary content market. Making secondary content can expand the heat of the original and create new wealth. And the secondary content market is larger than the existing online comics market and the consumer groups are huge, and the online comics market will also, expand.

Governance of illegal circulation of online comics

On May 28, 2018, the operator of the "night rabbit", the largest illegal comic book sharing site in South Korea, was detained. In February 2018, the South Korean government set up a special a working group (TF) to deal with illegal copying, trying to close illegal websites overseas, but it was not simple to implement.

Since the opening of the "Night Rabbit" in October 2016, it has been illegally copied and published 8347 online comics since its opening in May 2016. It has set the largest scale in the country and ranked 13th on the Korean website. A total of 61 companies, such as the portal and online comic platform companies, will lose more than 116 million. While reporting the country's largest website, "Night Rabbit," more than 10 illegal circulation websites were also closed or suspended.

It has been reported that since the closure of the largest illegal sharing site, there has been a balloon effect. Users of the original illegal website did not have comic resources and started looking for a new platform. As a result, users of legitimate websites have increased by 10% to 20%, but this increase is only temporary.

The industry has three requirements for such issues.

The first is to increase the damages caused by illegal websites. Consideration should be given to introducing a punitive damages system and increasing penalties for illegally copying websites such as “night rabbits”.

The second is to limit advertisers who bring revenue to illegal websites. Most of the advertisements on illegal websites are advertisements of Korean companies, which can cut off the sources of income of illegal websites by restricting these advertisers.

The third is to allow writers' groups and writers to participate in the government's use of legal cultural information. The industry hopes that through these three efforts, it will be able to re-establish a good market order and support the development of the Korean comic industry.



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