Kim Yong-soo, president of Webtoon Entertainment, speaks during a press conference in Seoul, Tuesday. Courtesy of Naver Webtoon
Naver Webtoon, the Korean subsidiary of the online content powerhouse Webtoon Entertainment, plans to strengthen its platform growth this year by expanding its creator-led ecosystem and advancing artificial intelligence technologies to connect diverse works with global readers, Webtoon Entertainment President Kim Yong-soo said Tuesday.
In his first official public appearance since taking office this month, Kim said that the platform will prioritize essential growth drivers such as creator support, the discovery of new talent and technical sophistication while pursuing visible results.
“A healthy creative ecosystem is a fundamental element necessary for the long-term growth of the company,” Kim said at a press conference in Seoul. “We will continue to invest in the creative ecosystem to ensure the sustainable growth of our business.”
From 2021 to 2025, Webtoon Entertainment distributed a total of 4.15 trillion won ($2.78 billion) to creators, the company said.
To maintain this momentum, the company revealed plans to invest more than 70 billion won this year alone into discovering new content, as well as providing creator education, welfare programs and support for global expansion.
Kim attributed the platform’s success to a “flywheel” strategy, where the growth of creators leads to the production of high-quality content, which in turn attracts more users. He explained that this virtuous cycle has played a key role in turning webtoons into a major category in the global entertainment industry.
“Webtoons start with creators to produce great works, and those works meet users and fandoms to contribute to revenue,” the president said.
“Since the success of creators is the success of webtoons, our biggest mission is to significantly increase the scale of revenue distributed to creators every year and achieve mutual growth.”
In order to expand the flywheel, he said, the company will focus on three major business directions this year: the diversification of creator support through user generated content platforms, the expansion of video formats and the advancement of digital characters and social functions.
Technology also plays a critical role in protecting creator profits. Kim highlighted the effectiveness of Toon Radar, an anti-piracy measure developed in-house to track and block illegal distributions.
Through this technology, the number of works copied to illegal sites on the same day of their official release decreased by approximately 80 percent as of November last year, compared to the average of the first three quarters of 2024, the company said.
“Illegal distribution is always a very big topic for us,” Kim said. “As it is our duty to ensure that the creators’ precious IP (intellectual property) is protected and distributed fairly, we are actively responding through technology and policy.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.koreatimes.co.kr ’
