Behind the growth of Piccoma are popular Korean-style comics known as webtoons. (image: Kakao Corp.)
SEOUL, April 21 (Korea Bizwire) – Piccoma, Kakao Japan Corp.’s online comic platform, is continuing its growth in the Japanese market.
Launched in April 2016, Piccoma saw its annual turnover increase 14-fold the following year.
Subsequently, the annual volume of business has more than doubled every year, growing 156 percent in 2018 and 130 percent in 2019.
Behind the growth of Piccoma are popular Korean-style comics known as webtoons.
The Japanese cartoon market is centered on paper comics and digital comics that digitize paper comics. On the other hand, Piccoma also introduced paid and free webtoons produced for mobile devices as well as digital comics.
Piccoma’s mobile app is on the verge of reaching the 20 million download mark.
Korean-made “K-Webtoons” have also driven Piccoma’s popularity.
D&C Media’s webtoon “Solo Leveling” entered the Japanese market through Piccoma, exceeding 1 million cumulative readerships, and its monthly turnover surpassed 1 billion won (US$819,700) in March of this year.
“We have combined Korea’s contents business with Japan, which has a huge cartoon market, to digitalize the industry and lead overall growth,” Kakao Japan CEO Kim Jae-yong said.
D. M. Park (dmpark@koreabizwire.com)
