Muristek
Piccoma is webtoon subscription services by Kakao Corp.
Kakao Corp. announced Sunday that it plans to launch the European version of its webtoon subscription services in either April or May of this year. Japanese subsidiary Kakao Japan Corp. developed the service Piccoma, the archipelago’s No. 1 ranked webtoon subscription service. PICCOMA FRANCEThe announcement signals a growing competition between South Korea’s two tech giants, Kakao and Naver Corp. over the global on-line content and entertainment industry.Japanese manga takes up about 30% of entire comic book sales in France. Kakao established Piccoma’s Europe office in France in Sept. 2021 and began working on setting up shop since then. Initially, Kakao was widely expected by industry insiders to open up its France office in the latter half of this year. A person familiar with the development told The Korea Economic Daily that the change in schedule reflects the rapidly increasing competition among webtoon platform operators in global markets. Naver’s webtoon service began as an in-house startup (CIC) of Naver in 2004. Expanding on this model, Naver Webtoon Corp. was established in May 2017.Naver Webtoon has maintained the No. 1 position in the number of comics-related paid app downloads in France’s Google Play since Jan. 2020, based on data compiled by app data analysis platform App Annie.In second place is Tappytoon, a webtoon and web novel platform best known for translating Korean comics. Last March, Naver Webtoon invested 33.4 billion won ($27.9 million) in Tappytoon, acquiring 25% of the platform operator Contents First. With the investment, Naver Webtoon became the latter’s largest shareholder. BRIDGEHEAD OF EUROPEThe Korean tech giants are targeting France for the European market becuase of the country’s strategic importance to its neighbours when it comes to cultural consumption. The French comics market size reached $298 million last year, the continent's biggest. It is projected to grow 3-4% each year to reach $346 million by 2025. Covid 19 has increased the demand for webtoons in France. In Feb. 2021, the country’s main newspaper 'Le Parisien' selected digital comics as the leading trend among the French youth.Since webtoons only account for 2-3% percent of the overall comics market, experts say the potential for growth is high. The two companies pursue different strategies. Naver is focusing its efforts on invigorating the local online comics ecosystem. It is incorporating the know-hows from the successful launch in the United States. In June 2020, Naver launched Canvas, a platform on which amateur creators can publish their comics for free. Once a product gains enough traction, ithe author gets the opportunity to publish on Naver Webtoon. Kakao is focusing its efforts on customizing its Korean and Japanese webtoons’ intellectual property to cater to local preferences. At the time of its entry into Japan, the company has successfully localized South Korean contents such as Solo Leveling and Itaewon Class.A Kakao employee familiar with the upcoming plans said Piccoma France is working on elevating the quality of its lineup and has already secured webtoons that have yet to debut outside of Japan. By Minki Koo, So-hyun Leekook@hankyung.comJee Abbey Lee edited this article.
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