France Piccoma is owned by the Korea-based company Kakao. (Kakao Piccoma)

By Min Yea-Ji and Lee Jihae

Webtoon platforms run by domestic corporations such as Kakao and Naver last year accounted for six of the world's top 10 paid digital comics or webtoons in sales.

Kakao Piccoma on April 11 cited a 2022 report by Data.ai, a platform that analyzes global data on mobile media and entertainment, as saying the exclusive app Piccoma led consumer spending in the global comics app category. A subsidiary set up by Kakao in 2011, the company launched the app in April 2016 and has remained No. 1 in sales by global comics apps since first topping the chart in July 2020.

Naver's Japanese webtoon service Line Manga ranked second, Line Webtoon third and Naver Webtoon sixth. Tapas, a North American-based webtoon platform acquired by Kakao last year, was eighth and Comico, a webtoon subsidiary of the Korean company NHN, 10th.

Korean operators of webtoon platforms are targeting not only Japan, the world's largest comic market, but also Europe.

Last month, Kakao Piccoma began service in France, and Naver will open in the first half of the year there the tentatively named Webtoon EU as a general corporation in Europe. The company will also host a webtoon contest in France in July and another in Germany in the second half of the year and look for promising content creators in both countries.

Hit K-dramas based on Korean webtoons such as "All of Us Are Dead," "Hellbound" and "Business Proposal" have gained global popularity through Netflix, thus the influence of Korean webtoons on the world market is ever-increasing.

Kakao Piccoma CEO Kim Jae-yong said, "This result is based on a strategy of reaching out to not only to existing comics fans but also all users who use content on smartphones," adding, "By presenting an environment allowing them to use existing offline content anytime and anywhere, we will reach more viewers and build a larger comics market."

jesimin@korea.kr