This image, provided by South Korean webtoon producer Kenaz, shows webtoons that are available in Japan.
SEOUL, April 20 (Korea Bizwire) — Global tech companies are entering the webtoon market, raising concerns that they could threaten the position of South Korea’s major platforms such as Naver Webtoon and Kakao Entertainment.
Apple Books, an e-book reading and store application by Apple Inc., on April 14 introduced vertical manga columns for its Japanese users.
This service refers to a digital comic content called “webtoon” that enables readers to scroll the content from top to bottom.
Even webtoons, together with Japanese comic content, will be available in the “manga store” of the Apple Books application.
South Korean webtoon producer Kenaz plans to supply various webtoons, including around 20 original webtoons, to Apple Books.
U.S. commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. also launched a webtoon service called Amazon Fliptoon in Japan via its Kindle store last month, with Kidari Studio and Lezhin Entertainment providing webtoon content.
It is worth noting that an American tech company is offering webtoon services in Japan by securing supply from South Korean webtoon producers.
This move reflects the fact that South Korea is the birthplace of vertical scroll-type digital comic content, and Japan is the world’s largest comic book market.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
