November 28, 2024

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(Webtoon)

Webtoon, South Korean tech giant Naver’s digital comics platform, has been ranked No. 8 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2023.

Fast Company is a monthly American business magazine that publishes an annual ranking of the most innovative companies, this year in 54 different industries and sectors.

In the media sector, Webtoon was ranked top, followed by The New York Times.

Fast Company said, “Webtoon pioneered a new way to experience digital comics when it reformatted them into a vertical scroll that’s tailor-made for mobile devices -- and then delivered them to readers in snackable weekly installments.”

Naver’s digital comics platform currently has more than 85 million monthly active readers, the company said. There are more than 830,000 creators, who have published 1.4 million titles in more than 100 countries and 10 languages.

“Webtoon has become an intellectual property powerhouse, with its comics turned into films and TV shows,” Fast Company added.

Fast Company also introduced that Netflix’s biggest recent non-English hits have come from Webtoon, which include Hellbound and Sweet Home. All of Us Are Dead, Netflix’s most-watched non-English-language series last year, was also based on Webtoon content.

“The latest achievement is an appreciation of not just Naver’s Webtoon but also an appreciation of passion and creativity of all content creators on the platform,” said Webtoon CEO Kim Jun-koo.

Meanwhile, OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has been ranked top of all companies that the magazine announced. OpenAI was followed by McDonald's and Airbnb.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)