French webtoon platform posts over 200% growth via Korean content

South Korea’s online content platform KidariStudio Inc. announced on Mar. 31 that its France-based webtoon arm, Delitoon SAS, logged around 10.9 billion won ($9.7 million) in revenue last year, up nearly 230% compared to the year-earlier period.

Acquired by Kidari in 2019, Delitoon is a webtoon platform that provides mostly Korean webtoons translated into French. Recently there has been a rise in the number of Korean webtoon viewers across French-speaking countries, including Belgium, Canada and Switzerland.

Backed by the success of the French-language service, Delitoon also rolled out webtoons translated into German last November. The platform's German-language service has also become popular, pulling in over 100 million won in monthly revenue.

Kidari has been stepping up efforts to boost its presence in overseas markets alongside enhancing its webtoon portfolio. Currently, Delitoon offers around 340 webtoons. The platform plans to add 300 additional webtoons by year-end.

The company has also been active at home as well, acquiring webtoon platforms Bomtoon and Lezhin Entertainment in 2018 and 2020, respectively. Lezhin Entertainment is a provider of Lezhin Comics, an online webtoon service for mature readers, which has a strong fanbase in North America and Japan.

“We aim to increase our presence across global markets, including Europe, backed by our competitive webtoon platforms,” said Kim Chun-gon, director of the global platform headquarters at KidariStudio.

Kim added that the company plans to launch additional webtoon services to operate at least five platforms in Europe by next year.

Danbee Lee edited this article.