Surprising Ecosystem
Page Profit Share (PPS), a revenue diversification program created by Naver Webtoon to share profits with cartoonists, has grown 87 times in 10 years since its introduction. The annual revenue has crossed the 2 trillion won line. In the future, based on the intellectual property (IP) of original works, Naver Webtoon has decided to expand various business models to give more support to cartoonists.
Naver Webtoon said that its annual revenue had increased to 2.255 trillion won (US$1.687 billion) while introducing the results of PPS in a press conference at Techone Building in Pangyo on April 25. As revenue was only 23.2 billion won (US$17.4 million) at the time of its introduction in 2013, it increased 87 times.
PPS is a creator’s revenue diversification model that allows cartoonists to share paid sales of content such as previews, advertisements, and IP business profits. It is a profit-generating structure similar to the concept of an incentive payment system that runs separately from fees for cartoonists.
The number of star cartoonists has also increased. In 2012, only one webtoon or web novel recorded more than 100 million won in annual transaction amount across all platforms of Naver Webtoon, Naver Series, Line Webtoon, and Line Manga platforms. But by 2022 that number had increased to 904. Among them, 136 works have an annual transaction amount of more than 1 billion won, and five works more than 10 billion won. Webtoons are also popular in overseas markets so more than half (52 percent) of their sales come from overseas.
Naver Webtoon is changing what the brand acronym PPS means, from Page Profit Share to Partners Profit Share, in consideration of the scalability of the content market, further expanding support for cartoonists. It took into consideration that webtoon IPs are expanding to include games, videos, and goods. The company announced that there would be 2,000 works with an annual transaction amount of over 100 million won by 2028 and more than 500 works with average monthly IP sales of five million won by 2025.
Naver Webtoon shows its strong confidence in facing off against global tech companies such as Apple jumping into the webtoon market. “Naver Webtoon provides a venue where creators and content meet each other and has many users, so it will not be easy to follow us in terms of both,” said Kim Joon-ku, CEO of Naver Webtoon. “By harnessing these strengths, we will widen our gap with followers.”