Naver Webtoon held a media briefing on March 17 at Naver Square in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, and unveiled the results of its creator support and its business direction for this year.

Kim Yong-su (김용수), appointed Webtoon Entertainment president on March 5, attended an official event for the first time. Naver Webtoon said Webtoon Entertainment, its parent company, distributed a total of 41.5 trillion won in revenue to creators over five years from 2021 to 2025.

Kim highlighted a "flywheel" strategy in which creators, content and users form a virtuous cycle, and signaled continued investment.

The company also announced results in its response to illegal distribution. Using its in-house technology "Toon Raider", it cut the number of illegally copied works on the day of release of the latest episode by about 80 percent as of November, compared with the average for the first three quarters of last year. After a pilot rollout of "simultaneous serialization" that removed the time gap between Korea and global markets, payments for works rose by as much as 200 percent.

Naver Webtoon said it will continue growth this year based on three business directions centered on creators, content and users.

It will revamp its user-generated content platform for amateur creators, CANVAS, and diversify creative education and welfare programs. It will expand content formats into video through short-form animation such as Korea's Cuts and North America's "video episodes", as well as a Japanese long-form animation project. It will also upgrade social features such as the AI-based "Character Chat" to increase user immersion.

Naver Webtoon said it will invest more than 70 billion won this year in discovering works and supporting creators. The funds will be used for contests, creator education and support for global expansion, among other things.

Kim said, "We will deliver tangible results through bold experiments and rapid execution, while continuing to focus our capabilities on the essentials for long-term growth such as creator support, discovering works and advancing technology."