South Korean Search Engine Naver Bought Wattpad for Half a Billion Dollars, Will Merge with Webtoon

Sieeka Khan, Tech Times 20 January 2021, 09:01 am

The storytelling website Wattpad has been acquired by the South Korean Internet Conglomerate, Naver, which is also the home to the digital comics platform Webtoon.

Naver buys Wattpad

On January 19, the Board of Directors of Wattpad announced that it unanimously approved a definitive agreement to be acquired by Naver, according to Variety.

Naver, which is South Korea's answer to Google, is expected to get the rights of the storytelling website in a cash and stock transaction that is said to value at more than USD $600 million. This amount is subject to adjustments and other terms.

Naver's acquisition will allow Wattpad to continue to accelerate its international growth and its success. Wattpad's headquarters will still be in Canada under the leadership of founders Ivan Yuen and Allen Lau.

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Naver is known for its search feature, e-commerce, social networking, communications and other content entertainment services and brands that includes Webtoon, Smart Stores, N Pay, V Live, Band and Snow.

Seong-Sook Han, the CEO of Naver, said that Wattpad co-founders Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen, and the whole team have created something special and that they are grateful to have all of them continue to lead the company post-acquisition, according to The Verge.

Han added that Wattpad's vision to entertain and connect the world through stories that fits with their vision for Webtoon and Naver's content brand.

Lau, the CEO and co-founder of Wattpad, said that when they started the site back in 2006, they understood that technology would democratize storytelling and that stories are the atomic unit of every type of entertainment. He said that in 2021, as every type of entertainment is transformed, they have created a platform that can fuel hits on bookshelves and screen, empowering and rewarding diverse creators around the world.

Lau added that the news about the acquisition is part of Wattpad's journey and that taking their business to the next level is their goal. He said that joining the teams at Naver and Webtoon can help Wattpad to grow and help more writers make money and bring new voices to bookstores and screens.

Wattpad joins Webtoon

Webtoon is a part of Naver's portfolio, and now Wattpad will be included in the list. Webtoon is South Korea's leading digital comics publisher that has expanded worldwide and has more than 72 million active users every month, according to Hollywood Report.

In November 2020, Webtoon announced the launch of Webtoon Studios which has worked with Crunchyroll, The Jim Henson Company and Vertigo Entertainment.

In 2020, the global community of Wattpad reached 90 million people, with 5 million writers, who spent more than 23 billion minutes a month engaged in original stories that taps on different genres such as romance, science fiction, horror, fantasy and more.

Currently there are 1,500 Wattpad stories that have been published as books. Some of these stories have been adapted for film or TV. In 2019, Wattpad launched Wattpad Book to help writers expand their work.

The company partnered with Collective Pictures to create "Float" that is based on the story written by Kate Marchant on the Wattpad platform. The other Wattpad stories that were adapted into movies are "After" and "The Kissing Booth."