WEBTOON Entertainment Posts Q3 Operating Loss of $9.23M, Citing "Higher Marketing Investment and FX Effects"

Revenue of $362.78 million, down 4% year over year
Kim Junkoo: "We expect to return to double-digit revenue growth in Q4"

WEBTOON Entertainment, the U.S. headquarters of Naver Webtoon, disclosed on Nov. 9 local time that it had provisionally posted an operating loss of $9.23 million (approximately KRW 13.1 billion) in the third quarter of this year, citing increased marketing investment and foreign exchange effects. Revenue for the third quarter was $362.78 million, down 4.0% year over year.

The operating loss narrowed 38.0% from $14.88 million in the same period last year, while the net loss fell sharply to $7.47 million from $11.05 million a year earlier.

By segment, revenue from paid content, the largest contributor, fell 3.9% to $275.51 million.

Advertising revenue rose 26.2% year over year to $49.68 million, while revenue from intellectual property (IP) fell 27.5% to $37.58 million.

WEBTOON Entertainment said revenue grew 0.2% when the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations was excluded, remaining at around its usual level.

Revenue from paid content in Korea grew 23.7% year over year. WEBTOON Entertainment said, "Growth was supported by works across a variety of genres, the recommendation system, and features that boost reader engagement, such as Fan Score."

WEBTOON Entertainment founder and CEO Kim Junkoo said, "We continued investing for growth in the third quarter," adding, "We expect to return to double-digit revenue growth in the fourth quarter."

CEO Kim said, "The company's strategy is delivering results across the business. On-platform, we are enhancing readers' discovery of and engagement with works, while off-platform, we are expanding our IP into a variety of content formats and developing it into global franchises."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.