Naver's Han Seong-suk Reveals Global Blueprint for Webtoons and Web Novels with Wattpad Founder

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Naver will unveil its blueprint to target the global webtoon and web novel market at an international conference.

Han Seong-sook, CEO of Naver; Kim Jun-gu, CEO of Naver Webtoon; and Allen Lau, founder of Wattpad, are scheduled to hold a discussion on the theme of "Empowering a New Generation of Creators" at the "Collision Conference" on the 21st.

The Collision Conference is a tech conference held in Toronto, Canada. It attracts over 40,000 attendees annually, with around 1,250 startups and more than 1,000 investors participating.

This year, due to the impact of COVID-19, the event will be held online. Attendees include Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, and Fiji Simo, head of Facebook apps.

This discussion marks the first official meeting of the representatives since Naver acquired Wattpad. Naver acquired 100% of Wattpad's shares for 653.3 billion KRW in January.

The three company leaders will discuss future global strategies, global hit works by creators, and the future of the intellectual property (IP) entertainment industry.

Naver is expected to become the world's largest storytelling platform operator with over 160 million users globally through Naver Webtoon and Wattpad.

Last year, Naver Webtoon surpassed an annual transaction volume of 820 billion KRW and 72 million monthly active users. It provides services in over 100 countries in 10 languages, including English, Japanese, French, and German. Naver Webtoon also invested in Contents First, the operator of "Tapas," which translates Korean webtoons and serves over 3 million users in 190 countries.

A Naver official stated, "This is a great opportunity to showcase Naver's strategy to expand globally with webtoons and web novels, which have immense power and are passionately embraced by Generation Z worldwide. We will continue to strive to capture the love of global users based on the strength of diverse content."