WEBTOON Entertainment Inc. (WBTN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Great. I think we're on. We're going to go ahead and get started. Stephen Ju with the U.S. Internet team. To my right is David Lee, who serves dual roles, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. So welcome back to the conference, David, and -- welcome and looking forward to chatting. So thanks for having us. You are a real gut for punishment because you seem to have dual roles at the company, right? So you are probably uniquely equipped to talk about what WEBTOON does.

Well, we'll see -- we'll see about that.

I have the utmost confidence in you.

I do enjoy -- my passion has always been to join founder-led companies that I thought had something that could change the world, and it usually is as a Board member in multiple roles. So here we are.

Yes. Yes. So what is WEBTOON? Like what's the vision of the founder and CEO? What is he looking at? What problem is he trying to solve? What's he looking to accomplish?

So WEBTOON is really different. It's a global storytelling hub. We have, on the one hand, 24 million creators around the world that create 120,000 stories every day. And oftentimes, when I've come across great user-generated platforms, quality has been the issue. But what sets WEBTOON apart is that we have so much market signal. We have 155 million monthly active users. By the way, the majority of which are not in our geographic area of origin in Asia. They're here in the U.S., they're in what we call rest of world. And we have this technology as we were started as a tech company that leverages AI and other tech to ensure that we have regularly big hits. So we did about $1.35 billion in revenue in 2024, primarily from paid content with this great source of exclusive proprietary storytelling that serves our platform well, but as we'll discuss, actually ends up being movies that you may have seen. Just this last Thanksgiving, Sidelined 2 came out, sequel after it came out of Sideline 1 a year ago, we've powered 100 examples of rich film adaptations. It's rumored that 2 of Netflix's all-time top projects ever came from our platform. So while you may not have heard about us or know about us very well, I bet your Gen Z consumers on our platform. And many of your friends have seen us even older as Netflix, Amazon Prime and other rich film adaptations.

Okay. But it can't be just Gen Z, right? Who are the consumers of the content -- who are your customers?

So it's interesting. Of our 155 million monthly active users here in the U.S., we're growing double digits for the last 2 quarters in webcomic app MAU in English-speaking countries like the U.S. The vast majority are Gen Z. They're the coveted 18- to 25-year-olds who are looking for a story they can't find anywhere else. And if you don't know us, in the palm of their hands, these app native consumers, they flip their finger and with instant gratification, they can see where a WEBTOON or webcomic story is going. There's just enough imagery, a few words, a notion of instant gratification. Yet on average, they spend 30 to 60 minutes every day on us. And it's the same behavior, to your point, in a more developed country like Korea, where we have 50% market penetration, we've been for 20 years, and yet the consumer behavior is the same. It's 30 to 60 minutes on average every day. The ARPU in Korea is $8. This is monthly ARPU. It's $6 already in rest of world. And in Japan, which in the last year has become a juggernaut, we are the #1 consumer app measured by revenue per sensor tower of all consumer apps in Japan, inclusive of mobile games. We've been that for the last 3 quarters. And in each region, the longer we've been in the region, we may have started as Gen Z, but in Korea, we're in everyday part of people's lives, even people as old as me in their 50s. In Japan, we have a wide spectrum, but we're more nascent. And here in the U.S., where we're below 5% penetration and growing fast, we start young, but frankly, we call her Maddie. When Maddie, who's Gen Z, 18 to 25, finds a story she loves, finishes it, unlike my days turning around Zynga or other places, I'm happy to have her fully consume a piece of IP because I got 120,000 stories coming every day for Maddie. So when she's in her 30s, and she doesn't like, I don't know, True Beauty, which, by the way, if you fly United to this conference, you can see True Beauty 1 and 2 as feature-linked films that started as stories on our platform. If Maddie outgrows what she loves as a 25-year-old, as a 35-, 45-year-old, we have every genre and it's habit forming. So it varies by region, but the coveted next generation of digital consumers is where we're super excited to grow here in the U.S.

Yes. You mentioned your prior place of employment, which ran a different revenue model. So that was more of a freemium model. And over here, this is a subscription-led model, right? How does that work?

Well, actually, how does that work? Yes. Let me explain this. And first, please don't look at where I've been in the past. The only common denominator is that there are companies in transformation driven by tech. So turning around Zynga or Best Buy with [indiscernible] or even Del Monte, I'm attracted to things that are in massive transformation. Our model is different. Maddie gets to surf for as long as she wants. She gets to see these great amateur creators tell stories from all parts of the world for free. And it's only when Maddie picks a story, she discovers it, this behavior is important for this generation. When she pulls from our digital universe story where she wants to see the next episode just as it comes out, and they tend to come out on a weekly basis. We don't ask Maddie to do a subscription. We've been very patient. She pays an average of $0.15 to $0.70 to see the next breaking weekly episode. What we find is the Maddies of the world, when you are patient, when you let it be their choice, when they discover it, they pick it and they commit to it in a micro payment, we actually find over cohort analysis from our longest running customers that over 3 years, they pay to read voluntarily 2 to 3x more on their own. So you don't see us buying top-of-funnel MAU. You don't see us spending a lot of marketing because when Maddie chooses, she builds in her own loyalty. And I got more stories coming every day to create that habit formation that we mentioned. And I'm really grateful to our founder, JK Kim, because he was so patient over 20 years, he built this model, vetted the format, and he patiently built a global infrastructure that's now -- has enough escape velocity to power growth.

Okay. So let's talk about Maddie for a second. So she's found a piece of content that she is fully invested in, waits 1 week for the content drop to show...

For 4 months or however long it is.

But it's always -- you have her for that one piece of content, but you grow when you get them for the other content, the other content, the other content, and the next thing, right? So...

Well, think of it as Maddie looks around at this unusual source of new stories from creators all over the world. By the way, the vast majority of our 24 million creators are amateurs. Their motivation isn't to make a quick buck. Their motivation is to tell a story in their head that somebody just might like. And so -- and that appeals to this generation of consumers as part of this creator economy. By the way, when Maddie discovers, say, that first story she loves and buys that first episode for $0.15 to $0.70, she can choose to continue to read that episode or she could read 5 different ones. When Maddie gets more confidence that there's an unexpected surprise story on a single source like Wattpad or WEBTOON, we see habit formation occur to increase market basket. It's a very different business model than a lot of the ones that I've been around. And that's why we have a lot of work to do to explain how this works as a relatively young public company with frankly some misunderstood notions in the marketplace, which we own fixing. So that's why I'm excited to talk to you about it.

Okay. So for an average user like a Maddie, like when they first hop on board, like they're consuming that one thing. But over the course of time, you're not doing your job if you're not giving her the next thing and the next thing. So as that cohort of users continue to age, right, how much time do they spend with you -- I mean, I assume that the time spent with you 30 to 60 minutes is probably an average number. There has to be people who are on your 24/7. There has to be people who are...

What's really interesting about this -- so one of the things before I joined WEBTOON just before we went public was I told my family, I would not work for another public hit-driven company again. No offense to my great former colleagues at Zynga. I'm proud of the work we did there. What's really unusual about this platform, to your question, is I don't have significant whales on either side. I don't rely upon like a hit that then I have to squeeze to monetize because I don't have another one coming. Every quarter, every month, there's a new flow of stories at sufficient scale, and we use AI to personalize recommendation to our consumers because we have so many stories that the marketplace provides a decent enough of recurring hits on that side. And then with regard to the Maddies of the world, we find that she comes -- she -- we skew female here in the U.S. in Gen Z. She's happy to read 1 story, 2 stories. It's a very flexible format. So you'd be surprised how persistent that average, that 30- to 60-minute average is -- and I don't see whales. I don't see people -- there are times in other businesses I got concerned that some consumers would spend every waking hour of their day on our platform. I don't have that concern here. Part of it is the asynchronous unique notion of a WEBTOON is you can be waiting in line for a cup of coffee and a fraction of a second see where a story is going, put it down, come back to it and sit down and religiously read it for 30 to 60 minutes. It's the most flexible -- you don't have to be in the moment to see a real like on TikTok or on my former days in mobile gaming. It is an extremely flexible format. So we're not seeing whales on either side of the equation.

Okay. So we talked about Maddie. Let's go to the other side of the equation. So who are these content creators? Amateurs, as you say, but it sounds like a lot of them have a great story to tell.

Yes. I think, first, the 24 million creators, the vast majority are amateurs. They're kindergarten teachers, they're graphic designers. Let me give you an example. Rachel Smythe, several years ago, hard-working graphic designer out in New Zealand, full-time job, graphic designer, has a story in her head. I didn't know who -- we didn't know who Rachel was, as wasn't in the company, but I wouldn't have even if I had been at the company. And no one really knew if Rachel's story would have resonance. She didn't either. She wrote -- she went to Canvas. We worked very hard in multiple languages to let anyone tell their stories amateurs for free. They can monetize a little bit on ads. But when we saw that Rachel, she told a story called Lore Olympus, which clearly was going to be a hit, and we have all the data and the tech to know with proven validation, not a human guessing the way I used to. We used to have humans who would tell us, well, this is going to be the next genre. This is going to be the next hit. Let's go to that proven hit maker that's going to cost us a lot of money only to find out that we had purchased a story from a one-hit wonder that cost the company a lot of money. I don't have that problem because in the case of Rachel, she's created a monster hit. No one would have guessed a Greek pathology romantic comedy set in kind of Olympic God's time would be published in multiple languages on our platform. By the way, franchise stars make up to $1 million per year on our platform. The average is well enough to change people's lives because they come from all parts of the world. She went on to be a New York Times best-selling author. I mean in print, and she's recently been affirmed in the last month as still being that. And she's rumored with our help to be -- soon to be featured as an animation release on one of the major streamers. We have so many examples of Rachel, like that is our business model. Now to be clear, while the majority of our well-monetizing stories here in the U.S., we call them originals come from the Rachels of the world, the amateurs that turn into surprise hits. We also are happy to let incredible well-established players like Disney or Warner Bros or many others, tell their stories with us. So in the case of Disney, there was a collaboration that was announced in August and September where 100 of their great stories are going to be put on our platform in our unique format, 6 of which have already been deployed. So you can read Predator and Alien and Star Wars and Spider-Man. And I'm super excited about the fact that it was also announced that we're going to tell original stories in the same theme of their franchises. Imagine a back story of your favorite Disney storyline that becomes the main character created by one of our creators as what we call an original of what if ending. For us, this is a way to creep the creator ecosystem healthy. And the other thing is we have the unique rev share model, another form of patients by our founder. We shared $2.8 billion with our creators between -- I think this is a 2017 to 2022 figure. On an ongoing basis, when we go to Rachel or we go to any one of our amateurs and say, you're going to be a star, we have all these tools to take you global and we have 100 examples where some of you have turned into great movie makers, great releasers of animation, great merchandisers of T-shirts, great sources of inspiration for short-form video or mobile games. When she agrees or the creator agrees, we empower them, we agree to a fair share agreement. And this agreement means our incentives are totally aligned. It by the way, also means that when we employ technology, for example, when we use AI to help our creators to be more productive, we've kind of established a business model that reduces conflict and a form of revenue that's already embedded in our system. I founded an AI company, got it funded and left it for WEBTOON because I thought we had a major head start in solving the business issues around AI. We have the AI tech, of course, we have 20 years of data, but we have the commercial engine and some of the IP rights already negotiated with the creator in our core flywheel. On the creator side, which has always been the focus of our founder, it's about creating a global marketplace and opportunity that goes beyond just our platform. That's what keeps them very interested. And that's been a key to our success in every market, particularly in Japan, one of the most competitive markets for creators, it's been really gratifying in just 1 year to become the leader there because creators get to publish in every language in multiple genres, get to release animation in the U.S., not just in Japan. So for us, this is a big part of our story.

There's a lot to unpack there. So for Rachel, the content creator, what other options does she have if it's not going to be WEBTOONs to get her stuff published. And by the way, when you mentioned AI, like what pops in my head is if Rachel or somebody else at the up-and-coming Rachel doesn't know how to draw as well, yes, you should be there with...

Yes. Well, Rachel thankfully knows how to draw well, but I will cover your question. This is the beauty of WEBTOON. We can democratize access for creators like Rachel, and we can truly be on their side, and we can route for them wherever she goes. Because what we can do is create an option for creators to be a winning creator on our platform, but to have the benefit of our history and relationships to help them be a powerhouse on any platform. And maybe 15 years ago, we wouldn't have had the escape velocity, the scope, the scale, the fact that we haven't used any of our balance sheet cash and we grew 9% constant currency, maybe we wouldn't have had that, but we have that now, and we can afford creators the ability to really root for them because we have a rev share model. On the question of drawing, it's interesting. There have been other companies that focus on what we call web novels. Web novels are, as you can imagine, novels, meaning no actual drawings. We have a very different model. We have 55 million web novels. We use them as a pool to do 2 things: one, to become great movies. Sideline 2, I just mentioned, Mary My Husband, a great example, started as a web novel. But then we are able to take that pool and turn those web novels with our help into web comics. So Marry My Husband went from being a web novel to a global hit as a web comic within the dream with our help that then was released in, I think, January of 2024 and was, I think, Amazon Prime's global #1, including in the U.S. So we have this pretty well thought through design of enabling one type of format, our global web novel format to turn into really strong monetizing web comics, but also to still have the ability to become hit films. What -- think about what -- the term web comic I oftentimes take because it implies for this generation of consumers that they've ever seen a paper-based comic, which they haven't. I like the term WEBTOON, but whatever you call it, it's a set of digital storyboards. We just released video episodes. How hard is it to help a creator with technology, take a set of digital storyboards that pays for itself and helps the creator recognize their own revenue on our platform and turn it into animation or anime. And if you believe that we are the tech company, I claim, we may have tools that enable great novelists to draw in the character of their own story to turn into web comics, which are digital stills or storyboards that can turn into great animation, rich film video, mobile games. This is why I'm so excited to have joined this company because I think we have the most pure format of story that people are willing to pay for increasingly, but has option value to power what the industry -- the entertainment industry needs, which is fresh, evergreen stories that have proven data behind who loves them globally.

Yes. You mentioned Disney earlier. This is the company that owns Marvel, which have their own graphic novels, whatever you want to call it. They coming to you, right, for, I guess, incremental content creation. I assume some distribution as well. So how does this relationship work? I guess, to them, you could be somebody who feeds them new fresh content that's found on your platform. But it sounds like there's also a symbiotic relationship there where you get to serve as a distribution outlet for them to, I suppose?

Well, first, I want to be clear. I mean, Disney is a great company. We're proud to collaborate with them, and they should speak on their own behalf. I can tell you what was super interesting for us and part of that interest is in our ability and desire to create mutual value for everyone that we work with. First, what was announced. First of all, it was an MOU, not a definitive agreement. I think it's interesting that both companies were interested in releasing information about an MOU. I would note that we already are well underway on the first part of the agreement with, as I mentioned, Marvel actually, Star Wars, Spider-Man, Predator and Alien are already out of the 100 -- I'll call them adapted stories of WEBTOON. But the second part of the agreement as announced by Disney was our ability to create and run a new digital platform that has access to 35,000 of these great stories across Disney, but also Pixar and 20th Century and you name it. Why we're excited about it is we know -- if you look at our last 2 quarters as reported, webcomic app MAU in English, that means U.S., Canada, Australia, U.K., et cetera, is growing double digits. And in the last quarter, I had the privilege of saying that MPU, those who are willing to pay for it is really beginning to grow, too. And you already heard me say the majority of, for example, our U.S. consumers are Gen Z, that coveted 18 to 25. So we're growing with arguably one of the most attractive demographics in the largest TAMs. We only are getting going in the largest TAMs, and we're growing double digits in the case of English webcomic app MAU. While the majority of our well monetizing stories we call originals come from our own ecosystem, that Canvas, the Rachel is a great example. Why not give these growing amount of fans, young fans access to all these stories in a format that they already love, which is in the palm of their hand. We think we're pretty good at running global consumer apps that Gen Z loves. We think we're pretty good at delivering great value to those who partner with us. By the way, this isn't new for us. We did a deal with IDW, Godzilla is on our platform. Years ago, we did a deal with DC Comic, Wayne Family Adventures is a playoff of the Batman series. So we've worked really hard to establish the core competence of partnering well, living up to great companies like Disney in a way that could speed up our adoption in what we call rest of world. We're 50% market penetration in Korea, sub below 20% in Japan, the #1 in Japan and Korea. And we're sub -- we're below 5% in the largest markets that we're growing double digits in. I'm really interested in paying off these great stories from Disney, but also growing faster in the largest TAM available to the company. That's my interest.

50% market share, like if I were...

I would say that 50% -- like how many people you think can create like we're 50% -- like we're in every day -- there have been some articles written that I can't validate that say that half of the hits on great distributors of film like Netflix could start stories in the Korean language on our platform. We're 50% of the market. So -- and I think that's a good example. People love great stories no matter what language they originate in. And I think that the rest of world market can easily approach the same level of penetration that we've seen in others. And I think, by the way, people sometimes mistake like, of course, U.S. consumers love great content from Korea. This wasn't ours, but KPop Demon Hunters obviously was a huge success for Netflix. But we create our own ecosystem of English-speaking creators as well. We love to bring over our content that's beloved from Central America, Europe or Asia to U.S. consumers, but we really love empowering the next generation of creators in the U.S., which is, I think, what differentiates.

So the optimist in me should believe that the market share and the -- I guess, the market presence that you have in Korea should be the norm as opposed to that being the exception as you think about what the rates could be?

I think the optimist in you should believe that the penetration of a population of great storytelling could be as high as where we've empirically proved at like 50%. But candidly, when I think of the room to run even where we are 50% like Korea, I think there's a lot of room to run. In former places, we know what half the market, in some cases, are choosing to read at the same time in the same genre, like the commonality of interest in community between Maddie and, I don't know, somebody else who she's never met. Every other consumer industry, mobile gaming, social media, you name it, enable community and connection, consumer to consumer. We've been so busy just growing our creators and our consumer flywheel, we haven't gotten to it yet. That's an enormous growth opportunity for the company that we haven't even begun yet. So I would say it is geographic penetration, but it is -- it's also deepening the community amongst consumers who have cross affinity in the same story that they're reading or multiple stories that they're reading. And then as well as the upside around being the source of stories outside our platform. We haven't gotten advertising yet, but that's the last one.

Okay. So let's talk about a situation in which a creator's content blows up, then you want to talk -- take it to other forms of media. How does that actually work? Do all of the creators who sign up now like you're thinking, okay, this could, over the next couple of years, blow up into a real property...

We've generally been very procreator and conservative. So, for example, if we had a first right of refusal, we generally just wanted creators to be as successful off our platform as possible. And here's the economic reason. When you see -- when you're watching a film and you see a story you love, you ask oftentimes if you're in the U.S., where did it come from? What other stories did that creator write? And it draws you to our platform, which is still nascent, WEBTOON and Wattpad, our 2 platforms. That is the lowest cost customer acquisition that I didn't have to buy, right? So there's a genuine value to the ecosystem, but there's just the philosophy to give every creator the ability to be successful anywhere. So when someone blows up, it's not that we control them. We advocate on their behalf often amongst partners that we have a long history with and an established track record to ensure that they're as successful as possible. In some rare cases, because we have a balance sheet now and we don't apparently use it yet, we have the ability to place a few bets. But we see so much growth in just growing storytelling for creators and consumers that it hasn't been an aggressive form of investment. It's upside value and option value because I think over time, as we grow, we have more leverage to do that. But to be clear, it's not something that we've acted on for the most part. We have a very successful studio in Asia, where you'll see us selectively make some of those bets -- My Daughter is a Zombie came out, I know it's a movie you probably haven't seen here in the U.S., but it was very successful in Korea last quarter. And you'll see more of those, but they're the exception. It is very -- a very small percent of the crossover IP successes from the company that we choose to act on.

Okay. Touched on advertising. How does that work on your platform?

So Korea is the most robust because when you have half of -- we have great products that leverage the strong engagement where they're rewarded video. In Japan, we've had success there as well, a pretty nascent market. We talked about it last quarter. But we really are just in the beginning phases in what we call rest of the world. Even though we have a very attractive demographic and strong engagement, frankly, our priority is much more to grow the flywheel around consumers and paid content first. But it is upside as well. I think you'll see over time us achieve what we've already proven in markets like Korea, in newer markets like Japan and the U.S. But admittedly and intentionally, we are going slow in the U.S. because we think there's a lot of upside in having a great consumer experience with more penetration on paid content.

Got you. We have about a minute or so left. So let's fast forward 1 year, December 2026.

Am I here again?

Yes. Of course, you're here, right?

Good.

Yes. And what do you think we're going to be talking about as we reflect on the trailing 12 months in terms of what WEBTOONs has been able to accomplish?

Well, I hope in a year, we're talking about how much proof is evident that what I believe has already happened in markets like the U.S. and rest of the world that there's already a large adoption of our content by the most attractive young consumers. I'd love to be able to talk to you about a movie you just saw or something that was released as a mobile game that started as a web novel or a web comic. And I hope and think that we'll be having a different conversation then about where the midterm, long-term guidance. Remember, we are less than 2 years old as a public company, and we've had growing pains. So I would love to be able to not have to close misunderstandings that we may have created with our investors, but be talking about the future with a great common view of what the company is. That would be my hope in a year.

David, this has been awesome. Thank you for joining us again.

Thanks for having us.