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Apple Inc. and Amazon Inc. are two of the big tech firms in the United States, and they are reportedly interested in expanding their businesses to a new market. They are said to be jumping into the webtoon business currently dominated by South Korean companies - Naver Corp. and Kakao Corporation.
Naver’s Line Corporation runs Line Manga, while the Japanese subsidiary of Kakao operates Piccoma. These are the largest names in the webtoon market, not only in Japan, where they are based but in the whole world. Now Apple and Amazon are joining the race to get their own share of customers in the global webtoon space.
According to Pulse News, Apple’s entry into this business is expected to expand the reach of the webtoon ecosystem that has tough intellectual property (IP) competitiveness. The iPhone maker’s foray into the webtoon market may also create a new strong rival for Naver and Kakao, which have been enjoying their high position in the market.
Business insiders revealed late last week that Apple’s Apple Books e-book platform has already launched its webtoon site for Japanese readers. The platform was said to have been opened on April 14, and KENAZ, a Korean webtoon studio, has been tasked with the exclusive content distribution on Apple Books.
As specified in its deal with Apple, the studio will provide the Korean webtoon content, and these exclusive releases will start with the upload of more than 20 original webtoon titles in Japan. The company’s foray into the webtoon market was not a quick process because it has been working to reach this goal for more than three years already.
Its plan is to produce more than 100 webtoon series that may involve about 180 creators. A business insider said that after Japan, Apple is aiming to bring its webtoons to North America.
The Korea Bizwire reported that Amazon also launched its webtoon service in Japan, which is named Amazon Fliptoon. This was made available to customers via its Kindle store last month. The company signed a deal with Lezhin Entertainment and Kidari Studio to provide the webtoon content.
Photo by: Laurenz Heymann/Unsplash
