Recently, as the webtoon industry has faced stagnation, the number of works registered on domestic platforms has decreased by nearly 7% over the past year.
According to the '2024 Comics and Webtoon Distribution Statistical Data' published by the Korea Comics Promotion Agency on Dec. 12, the total number of registered works last year was 18,792, a decrease of 6.7% compared to the same period the previous year (20,141). By platform, the distribution works on Kakao Entertainment's main platform, Kakao Page, decreased from 1,401 in 2023 to 1,176 last year, a drop of 16.1%, while the number of works on Kakao Webtoon fell from 486 to 379, a decrease of 22.0%. In contrast, the number of distribution works on Naver Webtoon increased from 353 to 424, a gain of 20.1%. Naver Series saw an increase from 2,304 to 2,775, growing by 20.4%.
Overall, the decrease in new webtoons has been pronounced. The total number of newly registered works across platforms was 17,245 in 2023, but last year it was only 14,723, a decline of 14.6%. This data is based on statistical analysis of works with confirmed serialization information from 34 domestic platforms.
The webtoon market experienced a boom during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2023 but showed signs of stagnation as external activities became freer with the end of the pandemic. Additionally, last year, the closure of the small platform Mangakyo, which was operated by Woowa Brothers and had 56 works distributed, dampened the industry.
Among the webtoons registered last year, the proportion classified as '18 and older,' also known as adult webtoons, reached 57.7%. The platform with the highest proportion of webtoons available only to readers aged 18 and older was Bomtoon at 83.4%. This was followed by ▲Jjangmanhwa (82.0%) ▲Book Cube (71.9%) ▲Lezhin Comics (71.3%). Among major platforms, the proportion of '18 and older' webtoons within Naver Series was relatively high at 48.6%. Kakao Page had 17.0%, while Kakao Webtoon and Naver Webtoon had 6.6% and 5.2%, respectively.