Wall Street:
"Disney's Seal of Approval Highlights
the Value of the Webtoon Platform"
Webtoon Entertainment, the parent company of Naver Webtoon, surged on the New York Stock Exchange following news of a partnership with The Walt Disney Company.
On August 13 (local time), Webtoon Entertainment closed at $16.96 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 81.2% from the previous session.
Previously, after the market closed the day before, Webtoon Entertainment announced that it had entered into a global content partnership with The Walt Disney Company. As a result, popular titles from Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and 20th Century Studios will be adapted into vertical-scroll webtoons. The first five titles to be adapted are "The Amazing Spider-Man," "Avengers," "Star Wars," "Alien," and "A Very Old Story."
Webtoon Entertainment plans to launch a dedicated Disney section within its English-language application, featuring around 100 collaborative series. The adaptations will be created using traditional methods, without the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Wall Street analysts have assessed that this deal with Disney has significantly increased the value of the webtoon platform. According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), investment bank Raymond James stated, "Disney's stamp of approval-given the company's notoriously strict standards for distributing its intellectual property-demonstrates the value of the webtoon platform and highlights its connection to a hard-to-reach customer base." The firm evaluated this partnership as a major achievement for Webtoon Entertainment.
JP Morgan also noted in its research report that this partnership is one of Disney's largest publishing collaborations to date.
Since its listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market in July last year, Webtoon Entertainment has underperformed expectations, resulting in a sluggish share price. In particular, since March of this year, the stock price has hovered near $10, less than half of its IPO price of $21.
Webtoon Entertainment disclosed the previous day that its operating loss for the second quarter was provisionally tallied at $8.76 million, with a net loss of $3.88 million.
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