Naver Webtoon Participates in France's 'Amazing' Event... "Feeling Global Popularity"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seomibeum] Naver Webtoon opened a booth at the ‘Amazing’ festival held in Paris, France from the 14th to the 17th, hosting events such as local artist autograph sessions, Korean artist autograph sessions, merchandise giveaways, and quiz games.

The ‘Amazing’ festival is an event that introduces and allows participants to experience popular culture attracting global attention. It was held for the first time this year as an ‘Expo-in-Expo’ within the large cultural festival ‘Japan Expo,’ which has been held annually in Paris since 1999. It exclusively showcases popular culture from countries other than Japan, including Korea, the United States, and Africa.

On weekdays, 12 French webtoon artists discovered locally by Naver Webtoon held autograph sessions over four days. On the weekend, Korean webtoon artists whose works are highly popular in France, including Yaongi of ‘True Beauty (Yeosin Gangnim),’ and YC and Rakhyeon of ‘Admission Mercenary (Ibhakyongbyeong),’ held autograph sessions.

YC and Rakhyeon, artists of ‘Admission Mercenary,’ who attended the autograph session, said, “Thanks to Naver Webtoon’s global platform, our works have been introduced to readers worldwide,” and added, “Meeting overseas readers in person through this event made us realize even more that interest in webtoons is growing globally.”

Naver Webtoon was the first domestic webtoon platform to enter the European market in December 2019, pioneering the early webtoon market and promoting webtoon content, which is still unfamiliar in Europe. According to mobile data and analytics platform data.ai (formerly App Annie), as of July this year, Naver Webtoon ranks overwhelmingly first in monthly active users (MAU) and revenue among webtoon/comic apps on Google Play and Apple App Store in France.

Chah Hana, Naver Webtoon Eurasia Business Leader, stated, “Although Europe is still an early webtoon market, the interest shown by visitors at this event was tremendous,” and added, “We will accelerate the discovery of local creators in Europe, including France, to further strengthen our competitiveness as the world’s number one story tech company.”