Korean Character Companies Achieve 23 Billion KRW Export Performance at Shenzhen Licensing Expo

148 Export Consultations Conducted at Korean Joint Offices
Licensing Agreement with 'Ujjjujju My Pet' Mengdodo

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency recently announced on the 16th that they successfully supported domestic character intellectual property (IP) companies in entering the Chinese market at the Shenzhen International Licensing Expo held in China.

The Shenzhen International Licensing Expo is a representative local character licensing event that originated from the animation IP licensing exhibition at the Guangzhou Toy Fair in 1989. Since 2020, it has been held exclusively in Shenzhen. Last year, it attracted more than 70,000 buyers, demonstrating its considerable scale.

At the Korean joint pavilion organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency, ten well-known domestic character IP companies participated. These included Anijak, Atoons, Aurora World, Bread Barber Shop, Carrysoft, Graphics, KB Vision, Monoverse, Cuties, and Soul Creative. They conducted 148 export consultations, achieving sales of 16.71 million USD (approximately 22.8 billion KRW). The Korea Contents Licensing Association, established to protect character IP rights, also showcased excellent character IP content from its members.

The most notable IP achievement was "Ujjujju My Pet," discovered through the Korea Creative Content Agency’s new character support project. It signed a three-year licensing contract with Mengdodo, a subsidiary of the Semer Group, which owns local children’s theme parks and clothing brands. Other IPs such as "Eggpig" and "Jeju Bairu" also secured contracts for licensing and co-production. Graphics, which develops various content through "Heopungseoni Show," established a new business platform and is jointly advancing the Latin American market entry of the popular Chinese character Nailong.

The Korea Creative Content Agency plans to operate the Korean joint pavilion again at the Dongguan Animation Copyright Expo in July and the Shanghai China Licensing Expo in October to target the Chinese character licensing market. Director Cho Hyun-rae stated, "We will make the Shenzhen Business Center a forward base for character licensing and accelerate the licensing expansion of animation and character IP."