The archive · Content & Film · Product decision · 2004–2020s
Naver's Webtoon redraws comics as a phone scroll — 170M monthly readers by 2024
Instead of page turns, Naver stacked panels into one continuous strip you scroll — born 2004 in Korea, global in 2014, 170M monthly users by 2024.
Naver Corporation · Webtoon Entertainment
What it had to solve
In early-2000s Korea, comics were still designed for printed pages, and moving them to screens meant squinting at scanned panels. Naver, a search portal, needed content that made sense on monitors and, later, on phones.
How it works
In the early 2000s, Korean web comics were mostly scanned pages squeezed into web browsers. The turning point came when the country's portal sites started their own services — Yahoo! Korea in 2002, Daum in 2003, then NAVER in 2004 — and the format that defined them was no longer the page at all.
The creative act was ergonomic: instead of adapting the page-turn, Naver Webtoon had artists draw each episode as one continuous vertical strip, panels stacked top to bottom, made to be scrolled on a monitor and later a phone. Stories ran free in weekly instalments, turning comics into a daily habit rather than a book to buy.
On 2 July 2014 Naver took the format global as LINE Webtoon, opening the platform to international creators who could upload their own vertical-scroll stories. By 2016 the service reported more than 10 million daily readers and 35 million monthly visitors; hit series such as Tower of God were being optioned for TV and film.
The format, not any single story, proved to be the breakthrough. By the end of Q1 2024 the combined platforms had roughly 170 million monthly active users across more than 150 countries, with 24 million creators and 55 million works, and Webtoon Entertainment had paid creators $2.8 billion between 2017 and 2023 — making the scroll style the default grammar of digital comics worldwide.
Why it lands
- The insight was ergonomic: a phone is a vertical window, so comics were rebuilt as one continuous scroll instead of ported pages.
- Weekly serialization plus free reading made a habit loop — readers returned for the next strip, building daily traffic.
- Opening the canvas to amateur creators meant the audience supplied the talent, so supply grew with demand.
- The format itself became the moat: once readers' thumbs learned the scroll, rivals had to copy the medium, not just the stories.
What it did
By Q1 2024 the platform had about 170 million monthly active users in more than 150 countries, 24 million creators and 55 million works; creator payouts totalled $2.8 billion from 2017–2023, and the vertical format became the template for digital comics worldwide.
What you can take
When a medium moves to a new device, don't port the old format — redesign the story for the new gesture. The vertical scroll made the phone the canvas, and the format itself became the product.
Since then
Webtoon went global on 2 July 2014 as LINE Webtoon, later renamed WEBTOON. By Q1 2024 the platforms reached roughly 170 million monthly active users in over 150 countries, with 24 million creators and 55 million works, and $2.8 billion paid to creators between 2017 and 2023. The business was spun off as Webtoon Entertainment, whose Nasdaq prospectus describes web-comics as 'weekly serialized stories expressed through vertical, continuous graphical content'. The format spread across Asia and the West, and its serialized hits now feed Netflix and TV adaptations.
Sources
- Webtoon Entertainment, Inc. — Prospectus (Form 424B4)
- 第10回 「ウェブトゥーン」登場の背景と経緯
- Korea's LINE Webtoon Digital-Comics Publisher Signs With CAA for TV and Film Projects
- 네이버웹툰, 글로벌 진출 10주년…'글로벌 기념 행사 진행'
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