Piccoma tops consumer spending ranking in Japan

Kakao Piccoma, a Japanese digital comics app subsidiary of South Korean mobile giant Kakao Corp., topped the consumer spending ranking in the Japanese mobile app market. 

According to data.ai, a mobile app market analysis firm, Pikkoma's estimated consumer spending was $497 million on January 17.

The mobile game Monster Strike ($482 million) was second, followed by the manga platform Line Manga ($418 million).

Piccoma was listed as the number one app in Japan in 2023 and 2024, including games, regardless of category, and topped in Japan for five consecutive years from 2020 to last year, excluding games.

Japan is one of the most important countries in the global manga market.

It has a large payment per reader, and manga intellectual property (IP) often extends to the anime and character industry.

According to a report from the Korea Creative Content Agency in 2023, the Japanese manga market is expected to grow to $7.65 billion by 2027.

Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at 2juhyun@hankyung.com