Line Digital Frontier buys eBOOK Initiative Japan

Line Digital Frontier, a Japanese subsidiary of Naver Webtoon, purchased Japanese electronic book company eBOOK Initiative Japan, the company said on Thursday. [NAVER WEBTOON]

Line Digital Frontier, a Japanese subsidiary of Naver Webtoon, purchased Japanese electronic book company eBOOK Initiative Japan for an unspecified amount, the company said on Thursday.

Line Digital Frontier is a Japanese webtoon company that operates Line Manga, a Japanese webtoon app. It is owned 70 percent by Naver’s webtoon subsidiary Webtoon Entertainment and 30 percent by Webtoon Entertainment’s subsidiary Naver Webtoon.

Founded in 2000, eBOOK Initiative Japan is an e-book service provider listed on the Tokyo Exchange with a market cap of 26.8 billion yen ($219.2 million). Its largest stakeholder was Yahoo Japan, a subsidiary of SoftBank.

The acquisition will allow Naver Webtoon to further expand its presence in the Japanese content market, according to the company.

eBOOK Initiative Japan operates digital book service eBook Japan as well as an online sales service for printed books, called bookfan. Ninety-five percent of the company’s transaction volume comes from comics, which will “create synergy in the Japanese digital comic market” according to Naver Webtoon.

“This acquisition comes as a decision for us to take a leap in the Japanese market, the biggest comics market in the world,” Naver Webtoon CEO Kim Jun-koo said in a press release.

“We will enhance Line Manga’s influence in the Japanese content market and expand the webtoon ecosystem along with eBOOK Japan.”

Naver Webtoon is competing for global dominance in the webtoon race with Kakao, whose webtoon service Piccoma is currently the No. 1 grossing webtoon app in Japan.

Naver Webtoon will establish a French subsidiary within the first half of this year and Kakao Piccoma, the webtoon subsidiary of Kakao, launched its French service on March 17. Kakao established a European webtoon subsidiary last September.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]