Webtoon Reaches Six Years Of US Operations

LOS ANGELES, July 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- WEBTOON Entertainment Inc., today announced it has reached six years of operation in the US. This latest milestone reflects another year of strong growth for the webcomic platform - the largest in the world - not just in terms of viewership, but also creator participation and creator revenue. The service plans to celebrate its anniversary with a series of reader and community events and "Coin" giveaways across August.

Readership of WEBTOON's English language service, launched six years ago, continues to rise rapidly. Page views on the ORIGINALS English service in June 2020 were just over 680 million ? up 52% from June 2019. Global page views (excluding Korea) for June 2020 crossed the 1.5 billion page view mark for the first time in company history, a 40% increase on the same period.

WEBTOON's CANVAS platform, which allows anyone to share their stories, has just reached 100,000 series. WEBTOON ORIGINALS - only available on WEBTOON - is home to some of the biggest names in webcomics, including Lore Olympus. Rachel Smythe's Eisner Award-nominated series has four million subscribers worldwide, and is scheduled to return in August for season two.

"We owe all our progress so far to our loyal readers and passionate creators," WEBTOON Entertainment Inc CEO Ken Kim said, "We're just getting started in taking our steps towards becoming a deeper entertainment service as hits like Tower of God and The God of High School make the leap to animated series. We're hoping to have more exciting news to share later in 2020 ? stay tuned."

Note for press:
Attached is a brief graphic with significant figures relating to both the US and global WEBTOON markets.

About WEBTOON

WEBTOONtm has become a cultural and global phenomenon, pioneering the distribution and consumption of web-based comics.  With an average of 64+ million monthly active users, 16.5+ million of whom read daily, more people consume WEBTOON series than watch most television shows.  WEBTOON features a broad and diverse catalog of content from all over the world -- including romance, thriller, fantasy, comedy and more.  Launched stateside in 2014, WEBTOON has thousands of creator-owned series with episodes updating daily.  Also boasting partnerships with Legendary, POW!, Top Cow/Image, and more, WEBTOON takes storytelling to the next level.  Creators have been nominated for multiple Eisner Awards, as well as winning a multitude of Ringo Awards.  The WEBTOON app is free to download on Android and iOS devices.

Press queries:
Justin Kranzl ([email protected])

SIGNIFICANT FIGURES:

Monthly US users on the WEBTOON service: 10+ million

Monthly users on the WEBTOON global service: 64+ million

Creator revenue* to date from WEBTOON to 12,000+ CANVAS creators: $5+ million
(*includes ad revenue; WEBTOON temporarily increased creators' net ad revenue share to 100% until end 2020)

May 2020* global page views for Lore Olympus: 34+ million
(*note: Lore Olympus has been on hiatus since June and returns August)

US WEBTOON ORIGINALS creators: 260

Global ORIGINALS creators: 2000

Page views of the ORIGINALS series on the English service for June 2020: 680+ million

Global (excluding Korea) WEBTOON app views for June 2020: 1.5+ billion

SOURCE WEBTOON