Kakao Piccoma Ranks 1st in Japan App Market Sales in September... 20th Globally

Piccoma September App Market Sales Ranking (Source: Data AI)

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kakao Piccoma announced on the 4th that its global comic platform ‘Piccoma’ ranked first in total integrated app sales, including games, in the Japanese app market (App Store + Google Play) throughout September. This marks the fourth time this year, following May, June, and July.

According to data compiled by the data and analytics platform 'Data AI,' Piccoma achieved ▲1st place in total app sales (including games) in Japan ▲1st place in global comic app sales ▲7th place in global total app sales (excluding games) ▲20th place in global total app sales (including games).

The Japanese mobile app market ranks third in the world after China and the United States. Among apps in the ‘Books and Reference’ category within the global top 20 total app sales, Piccoma is the only app included.

As of the third quarter of this year, Piccoma has over 10 million monthly active users (MAU), and its operating profit reached an all-time high. During the earnings conference call held the previous day, Kakao explained that Piccoma ‘maintains a market share of over 50% in the Japanese app comic market,’ emphasizing that it is growing steadily by simultaneously expanding scale and strengthening fundamentals.

Piccoma offers comics, novels, and popular webtoons from Korea, Japan, the United States, and other countries through its app and web services, published by leading Japanese publishers. Since its first launch in April 2016 in Japan, the world’s largest comic market with over 100 comic services, Piccoma has held the top position in transaction volume among single comic platforms in Japan since July 2020.

Kakao Piccoma cited the following factors for Piccoma’s growth: ▲repositioning comics as ‘snack culture’ through episode-segmented published comics and webtoons ▲optimized UI/UX for comics, novels, and webtoons ▲curation of works reflecting users’ preferences. Additionally, since August this year, Piccoma introduced a new ‘Channel’ tab that directly connects users with content providers (comic publishers), offering users a new viewing experience.

Piccoma established its European subsidiary ‘Piccoma Europe’ last September and launched the same-named service in France in March this year. It is regarded as having firmly established itself locally, thanks to the advantage of quickly accessing official versions of webtoon works (from Korea, Japan, and China) in France.

Kim Jaeyong, CEO of Kakao Piccoma, stated, “Piccoma aims to be a platform where anyone can enjoy content without restrictions of place and time. We plan to develop a broad content library and services tailored to the diverse tastes and needs of Piccoma users.” He added, “Through this, we will connect many works and users worldwide and strive for the development of the global comic market.”