S.Korea's webtoon industry sales surpasses $1.36 bn

South Korea's webtoon market size surpassed 2 trillion won ($1.36 billion) for the first time. 

The South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and its affiliate Korea Creative Content Agency released a 2024 survey on the webtoon sector.

According to the report, the total revenue for the webtoon industry in 2023 reached 2.189 trillion won, a 19.7% increase from the previous year's 1.829 trillion won.

Japan was the largest market with 40.3%, followed by North America (19.7%), Chinese-speaking countries (15.6%), Southeast Asia (12.3%), and Europe (8.2%).

The percentage of the pirated webtoons was 20.4%, down from 21.5% last year. 80% of users enjoy webtoons on their smartphones.

Women webtoon writers (58.3%) were more than men (41.7%). Around half of webtoon creators are in their 30s (61.1%). This is followed by those in their 20s (23.5%), 40s and more (15.4%). 

Webtoon writers earned an average of 42.68 million won in 2023. Only 24.7% of webtoonists earned more than 50 million won.

Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at deep@hankyung.com