Apple Inc is betting on Korean Web comics to give a jolt of life to its Books app.
The Cupertino, California-based firm signed a three-year exclusive contract with South Korean start-up Kenaz in December last yearto supply online comics known as Webtoons.
The new content was rolled out in Japan last month, and is set to cover all 51 countries where Books is available, the firm said.
The value of the deal was not disclosed.
Webtoons are South Korea’s favorite way of consuming digital comics, and provide the inspiration for many of the country’s global hits from dark zombie comedy All of Us Are Dead to monster epic Sweet Home.
The format, which has users scrolling through full-color, super-short episodes on their phones or PCs, has been around for decades. Unlike conventional manga or comic books, authors draw Webtoons accounting for how much screen space is created by a single scroll-down on a device. In Japan, the genre is known as “tate yomi manga,” or vertically read manga.
“North America doesn’t really have a significant lead player in Webtoons yet,” Kenaz founder and CEO Woody Lee said. “Apple Books has a chance at becoming a competitive player in this field pretty quickly.”
Global interest in South Korean entertainment has exploded in recent years with the rise of series such as Squid Game and the Academy Award-winning film Parasite.
The Motion Picture Association of America organized a summit of Hollywood executives in Washington last month to take advantage of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s visit to the US and discuss collaboration.
In September, Books global head Kashif Zafar and head of content Sasha Norkin flew to Seoul to discuss the Kenaz deal for three days before making a final call, Lee said.
It has been a while since Apple last introduced a new service to its Books app, which has not benefited from the massive investment that other services such as Apple Music and Apple TV have received.
Apple studied Webtoons as a potential addition to its portfolio for more than two years before getting involved in detailed discussions with Kenaz, Lee said.
Apple’s decision to tap the Webtoons market underscores a growing appetite for the category. It follows a move by Amazon.com Inc in March to launch a Webtoons section on Kindle for Japanese users.
In Asia, South Korea’s Naver Corp and Kakao Corp are among the biggest distributors, while China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動) have also invested in Webtoons services.
Apple likely chose Kenaz over bigger players such as Naver and Kakao — which publish Webtoons on their own, well-developed platforms — to ensure access to original content without any conflicts over distribution, Lee said.
The founder expects about 30 percent of Kenaz’s Webtoons to be first published via Apple Books. Kenaz, home to about 140 authors, was valued at 86 billion won (US$65.2 million) during its latest funding round.
The company plans another funding round later this year and to go public next year.
Kenaz is now working with David Franzoni, who wrote Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator, to recreate the story as a Webtoon series. The start-up is also working with popular French writer Bernard Werber to convert his Ants trilogy of novels into online comics.
Its Webtoon service for Apple Books in North America is to be launched in the near future, Lee said.
“There is just so much demand for original intellectual property content these days,” Lee said. The new hot topic in the content market is to identify a story IP with growth potential and create an entire value chain out of it.”
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