NAVER Completes Acquisition of Wattpad, Fuels Ambitions to Maintain No.1 Global Storytelling Platform
NAVER Completes Acquisition of Wattpad, Fuels Ambitions to Maintain No.1 Global Storytelling Platform
NAVER Completes Acquisition of Wattpad, Fuels Ambitions to Maintain No.1 Global Storytelling Platform
- Between WEBTOON and Wattpad, NAVER now has more than 166 million monthly average readers, 5.7 million creators, and 1 billion content creations
- The acquisition establishes NAVER as a key entertainment player with expanded Intellectual property (IP) and a creator ecosystem that offers high value ‘one source, multi-use’ story content
- NAVER to advance Wattpad’s large-scale creative ecosystem by leveraging WEBTOON’s profit model and know-how
- 167 projects are underway to adapt webtoons and webnovels into movies, dramas, and animations
2021-05-11
NAVER Corporation announced on May 11 that it has completed the acquisition of Wattpad, the world’s biggest webnovel platform. The company plans to accelerate its international growth and success by aligning the No. 1 global storytelling platforms in both webtoons and webnovels.
After NAVER’s board of directors approved the agreement to acquire Wattpad earlier this year, the company cleared regulatory hurdles in Korea, U.S., and Canada and acquired Wattpad in a cash and stock transaction valued at more than an estimated USD $600 million.
NAVER expects the acquisition of Wattpad to create exciting new synergies within its intellectual property business. With WEBTOON and Wattpad, NAVER now has 5.7 million creators and 1 billion pieces of content, the largest collection of its kind in the world. The two platforms attract a combined 166 million monthly average users (MAU), including Wattpad’s 94 million users and WEBTOON’s 72+ million users, and a lot of original stories.
(As of April 2021, there are 700,000 creators on WEBTOON and 5 million on Wattpad. There are 1.3 million content creations on WEBTOON and 10 billion on Wattpad.)
NAVER plans to upgrade Wattpad’s platform and community, based on its experience and know-how in IP business and the monetization model for WEBTOON. In 2013, NAVER introduced a Page Profit Share (PPS) program that provides creators with a variety of revenue streams, such as paid viewing, advertising, and character-based merchandise. The program not only helps creators maximize their profits but also build vast, loyal fan bases. NAVER expects to apply this PPS program to Wattpad as well. Wattpad launched its Wattpad's Paid Stories program in 2019, continuing to make efforts to diversify its creators' profits.
Webnovels and webtoons with great narratives and huge fandoms represent a ‘one source, multi-use’ wellspring for NAVER’s burgeoning IP business. NAVER will continue to work with Wattpad on crossover adaptations from webnovel to webtoon and from webtoon to webnovel. NAVER said it expects collaboration between Studio N, a WEBTOON’s subsidiary for dramatic film productions, and Wattpad Studios to create new synergies. As of 2021, a total of 167 content creations, including 90 from Wattpad and 77 from WEBTOON are being adapted into dramas, movies, and animations.
In addition, both companies will work together to develop various innovative technologies for creators and a creative ecosystem. WEBTOON has already developed ‘Automatic Colorization’ and ‘Sketch Simplification’ technology to promote work efficiency and ‘Toon Radar’, an artificial intelligence technology that quickly catches illegal users by reading user identification information imprinted on webtoons. Wattpad is also working hard to discover stand-out stories and recommend them for users among more than 1 billion uploads on the platform, utilizing Wattpad’s Story DNA Machine Learning technology.
“Wattpad has created something truly unique: an engaged, positive global community of people who share a passion for great stories,” said Seong-Sook Han, CEO of NAVER. “Through this acquisition, it is expected that the synergy between WEBTOON and Wattpad will be even greater. With a growing global user base of Gen Z readers and creators on Wattpad and WEBTOON, combined with hundreds of millions of incredible stories to fuel on-screen hits, NAVER is quickly becoming an important player in global entertainment and content market.”
“We’re thrilled to have Wattpad join NAVER and WEBTOON, aligning our teams and global communities to create more opportunities for writers everywhere,” said Jun-Koo Kim, founder and CEO of WEBTOON. “In the future, Wattpad’s endless stories will be combined with WEBTOON’s technology and business model to provide the best experience and inspiration for users and creators around the world.”
“By joining the NAVER family of companies, we’re continuing that vision, with more resources and expertise to grow our global community and help writers everywhere achieve their dreams,” said Allen Lau, CEO of Wattpad. “Alongside NAVER and WEBTOON, we’re positioned for faster growth and continued innovation to support writers and transform publishing and entertainment around the world.”
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