K-Webtoon Goes Bollywood... Kakao Taps into India's 1.4 Billion Market

India Shows Fastest Recent Growth in Content Market
Webtoon IP Supply to Begin in Second Half
Potential Use of IP Related to World's Largest Bollywood Film Market
Targeting European Expansion This Year

Jongcheol Park, Vice President and Head of Kakao Entertainment Platform Division

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Kakao Webtoon is knocking on the door of the 1.4 billion-strong Indian market. Kakao Entertainment, which is in charge of the webtoon business, has set a goal to actively supply webtoon intellectual property (IP) to the Indian market starting in the second half of the year and is accelerating its preparations. This is part of a strategy to achieve 1 trillion KRW in sales this year.

Planting ‘Webtoon’ in India

Park Jong-cheol, Vice President and Head of the Platform Business Division at Kakao Entertainment, said in an interview with Asia Economy on the 7th, "India is a country with strong content led by ‘Bollywood’ (the Indian film industry) and is accustomed to consuming content as culture," adding, "The moment they accept the webtoon format, it will have tremendous potential."

India, with a population of about 1.4 billion, is not only the largest market in the world but also the country showing the fastest growth in the content market over the past five years. According to the Korea Creative Content Agency, India’s content market is estimated to reach $40.7 billion (approximately 46 trillion KRW) this year. Especially, thanks to the increase in wireless internet penetration and expanded investment in content production, an average annual growth rate of 10.14% is expected until 2024.

Kakao Entertainment has long had its eyes on the Indian market. It highly values the potential of India, where the comic and webtoon market has not yet fully emerged. Last year, Kakao Entertainment acquired ‘Cross Pictures.’ Cross Pictures is the only domestic production company that has created a successful case in the Indian market. It produced the Indian remake version of the film ‘Miss Granny’ and launched India’s first webtoon platform, ‘Cross Comics.’ Kakao Entertainment plans to use ‘Cross Comics’ as a stepping stone to actively supply webtoon IP and is even considering rebranding the webtoon platform in India under the ‘Kakao’ brand.

India has the world’s largest film market called Bollywood, which opens up possibilities for related IP utilization. Just like the recent collaboration with the US-based DC Comics, Bollywood content can be adapted into webtoons, and Korean content can be made into Bollywood films. Vice President Park explained, "There is a positive aspect in that competitive Korean content industries can grow, such as ‘What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim’ being made into an Indian version."

Expanding to Europe for "1 Trillion KRW in Sales"

Kakao Entertainment has drawn a big picture of expanding into Europe this year, following Japan, North America, Greater China, Southeast Asia, and India. The ambition is to become a global entertainment giant comparable to Disney and Marvel. In particular, with the merger of KakaoPage and Kakao M, Kakao Entertainment can now operate businesses across all genres including webtoons, dramas, films, and music production.

Kakao Entertainment’s weapon is its 8,500 intellectual properties (IPs). However, Kakao Entertainment plans to pursue a different ‘super IP’ strategy from Marvel. Instead of focusing on a few powerful IPs, it aims for a quantitative approach. Vice President Park said, "Since Kakao Entertainment operates a platform that users visit daily, it cannot rely on just 5 or 6 IPs. It is closer to having an enormous number of IPs worth tens of billions, hundreds of billions, or even trillions in value," emphasizing, "Even if the value of webtoons and web novels was small, once they enter Kakao Entertainment, their value will multiply as they expand globally into various formats such as films and dramas."

Based on its global content achievements, Kakao Entertainment expects to achieve annual sales exceeding 1 trillion KRW this year. He stated, "Kakao Entertainment has built the world’s first unique value chain that encompasses all genres of visual and auditory content," and added, "We will integrate Korean content and grow into a global company."