The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency on Dec. 24 said the domestic webtoon industry last year saw annual sales break KRW 1 trillion for the first time. Shown is webtoonist Greeon's drawing for December in the 2022 desk calendar of the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS) conveying the theme "Strength of an information and communications technology power -- Korean technology." (KOCIS)

By Kim Hayeon and Lee Jihae

The domestic webtoon industry last year showed explosive growth in breaking KRW 1 trillion in sales for the first time.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency on Dec. 24 released two studies on this year's webtoon industry and webtoonists.

The reports of the two institutions said the sector saw sales last year of KRW 1.53 trillion, surging 64.6% from KRW 640 billion in 2019.

This is the first time for the figure to break KRW 1 trillion since compilation of statistics on the sector began in 2017.

Of the sales figure, the webtoon-related sector accounted for 64.9%, sales of paid content 61.3%, those of foreign content 12.1%, publication 6.5%, sales of secondary copyrights (6%) and advertising revenue (4.7%).

The average annual income of webtoonists with serialized works within the last year was KRW 56.68 million, up KRW 8.28 million from 2019, and that of those whose works were serialized year-round KRW 81.21 million, up KRW 6.58 million.

On the problems webtoonists have faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the most commonly cited were those related to working onsite (56.7%), disruptions to personnel operation plans (37.3%), stifled advances abroad (22.4%), and payments of taxes and insurance for health, pension, employment and industrial accident compensation (17.9%).

When pushing for projects, the most common problems were finding new artists and works (58.2%), lack of professional personnel for planning, production and development (40.3%), sites with pirated content (29.9%) and attracting external funds or investment (25.4%).

The two studies surveyed 67 webtoon companies and 710 webtoonists through the use of questionnaires and interviews. The results will be used as basic data for policymaking to develop the webtoon industry and create a fair environment for the sector.

hayeounk8@korea.kr