Seen is an introduction website of Naver's contests for online comics and novels. / Captured from Naver



By Baek Byung-yeul



Naver and Kakao have been investing heavily in securing the intellectual property rights of web novels and cartoons to ride on the rapidly growing cultural content market, industry officials said Wednesday.



Korea's two top internet companies have been gearing up a wide range of original sources as there will be growing business opportunities for diverse forms of cultural content such as movies, TV shows and animations amid the rise of video streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, they added.



Naver Webtoon, a content distribution affiliate of Naver, has been a leading online comic provider in Korea and abroad. The company said it has topped Google Play's online comic category in more than 100 countries and the number of monthly active users of its service is 60 million.



Based on its popularity all over the world, Kim Joon-ku, CEO of Naver Webtoon, said recently the company expects to achieve annual transactions worth more than 600 billion won ($500 million) in 2019.



"To make it a global entertainment company like Disney, we plan to propel Naver Webtoon forward by focusing on our webtoon platform and a creative ecosystem," he said.



As he mentioned, Naver Webtoon has been aggressively trying to collect original content by hosting a series of contests this year, seeking rookie novelists and cartoonists. The company held comic contests three times and novel contests four times with total prize money adding up to 1.5 billion won.





Seen is a poster for Kakao's online comics "Summit: Steel Rain 3." Kakao said the film version of the comic will also be premiered in 2020. / Courtesy of Kakao