S. KOREAN WEBTOONS GAIN INT’L ATTENTION

[Anchor Lead]

The recent popularity of BTS and Squid Game has brought Europe’s attention on Korean cultural contents. In addition, Korean webtoons or online comics are showing signs of becoming the next hot hallyu content as webtoons take up growing shares in the cultural contents industry.

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France has a huge comics market where more than 50 million copies of paperback comics are sold each year. Shops selling Japanese comic books called manga line this city street. Manga is very popular in France. It accounts for 40% of the local comics market.

[Soundbite] David(Manager, Japanese Manga Bookstore) : "Manga became more widespread and popular as comic books were turned into TV programs."

South Korean webtoons take up only 2% of the French comics market, but online webtoon sales are growing fast, doubling every year. This French mobile platform company provides Korean webtoons translated into French. The company’s membership exceeded two million in 2020 and its revenue grew 230% in just a year. With the demand for Korean web comics on the rise, Naver Webtoon launched the French service in 2019. Piccoma, a Kakao subsidiary, is getting ready to open its webtoon subscription service.

[Soundbite] Yoo Sung-hoon(Europe Business Center, Korea Creative Content Agency) : "Korean webtoons are already leading the European digital contents market, so I believe their popularity would only grow as the online market expands."

The European cultural industry recognizes some of Korea’s hottest shows and movies are based on webtoons. Webtoons are serving as the test beds for the film and drama industries while steadily supplying diverse materials to content creators.