Kakao Entertainment announced that it will acquire Wuxiaworld, the world’s largest ‘Asian fantasy’ web novel platform. Kakao Entertainment plans to make all-out efforts to target the North American market by simultaneously embracing three content platforms, including Tapas, Radish, and Wuxia World.
Lee Jin-soo, CEO of Kakao Entertainment, said, “Kakao Entertainment has proven its unique success equation, including premium IP, advanced platforms, and marketing specialized for story IP, through successive successes in Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan.” “We will focus on the growth of the and ASEAN markets, and in particular, North America will be our main base with our story IP triangle, including Tapas, Raddish, and Wuxia World.”
He added, “Focusing on our solid influence in the U.S., we will build webtoons/web novels into the global mainstream, allowing more writers to advance into the global market and at the same time allow creators and the platform to grow together.”
Wuxia World, founded in 2014 by Jingping Lai, a former American diplomat, is a leading English web novel service that has achieved sales growth of about 40% every year organically without mass marketing or promotion. In particular, Wuxia World, which boasts a unique color as the world’s largest ‘Asian fantasy’ platform born in the United States, is also the only male-oriented platform among many global web novel services. We have built a vast web novel database centered on English translators who love fantasy, including martial arts, and a community of English-speaking readers, and we boast a strong readership that generates 85% of our sales through regular subscriptions.
The acquisition is being made through Radish, a North American web novel platform. With this acquisition, Kakao Entertainment now has a wide range of content capabilities in North America, encompassing male-oriented and female-oriented web novels. Unlike Uxia World, Radish is a platform with strong female-oriented content, and genres such as romance fantasy are receiving great response among other genres. They also have a similar strong fan base, with 90% of Radish’s sales coming from its own original IP. Kakao Entertainment predicts that the combination of these platforms, which have a loyal fan base and different genres, will create various synergies.
In Woosia World, Kakao Entertainment’s content and business capabilities are organically combined. In Uxia World, Kakao Entertainment’s representative hit IPs such as ‘Tempal’ and ‘The Second Coming of Gluttony’ have already ranked first in sales, and in particular, ‘The Second Coming of Gluttony’ has broken the highest cumulative sales ever. Currently, Kakao Entertainment IP accounts for about 5% of all works, leading to a quarter of Wuxia World’s sales. In the future, Kakao Entertainment’s representative BMs such as ‘If you wait, it’s free’ will be introduced to Woosia World, and various processes for rapid growth will be carried out, such as distributing English versions of male-oriented web novel IPs and upgrading the Woosia World website and mobile app.
Seungyoon Lee, Global Strategy Officer (GSO) at Kakao Entertainment and CEO of Radish, said, “Usia World is a premium service where most of the sales come from the regular subscriber system, and there is strong demand for Korea’s leading IP discovered by Kakao Entertainment.” He added, “Japan 1 Like the Piccoma example above, Kakao Entertainment’s IPs are continuing to break all-time record sales. “We will aggressively supply Kakao Entertainment IP and combine it with Radish’s unique English-American business know-how to reorganize the North American web novel market,” he said.
This acquisition is one of the signals announcing Kakao Entertainment’s full-fledged global project with the goal of ‘tripling the amount of global story transactions within 3 years’ through its new global vision. Starting with the first webtoon service in 2002, Kakao Entertainment has developed the domestic webtoon/web novel industry and has established itself as a business operator that imprints K-Story around the world in 20 years. In particular, differentiated competitiveness has been built through the joining of numerous global content companies, and these companies and platforms are becoming the foundation for many Korean creatives, webtoons, and web novels to play an active role on the global stage.
In particular, North America, the world’s largest entertainment market targeted through Tapas-Radish-Usia World, is having a huge impact on the global content market. Kakao Entertainment plans to use its strong influence in the United States as leverage to grow into an IP company that stands shoulder to shoulder with global giant content companies.
Source: Pangyo Techno Valley Official Newsroom
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