WEBTOON's monthly active users rose 2.7% in the third quarter while monthly paying users fell 3.1%

WEBTOON Entertainment, which runs the WEBTOON webcomic platform and the web-novel site Wattpad, said on November 9, 2026, that its monthly active users rose 2.7% to about 159.6 million in the third quarter, while the number of people paying for content each month fell 3.1% to 7.5 million. The share of users who pay, which the company calls its paying ratio, slipped to 4.7% from 5.0%.

The company counts monthly users per device and per service, so one person can be counted more than once. Since its first-quarter report it has also excluded fake accounts and accounts created by bots; it says such activity was immaterial in the period it compares against.

Where the readers are

Most of the audience is not where most of the revenue is. Users outside Korea and Japan made up 70% of monthly users but 12.7% of revenue (our calculation), and only 1.4% of them paid in a month, down from 1.6%. Korea is the stronger market: paying users there rose to about 3.9 million, 15.1% of users, and Korean revenue rose 10.8% to $169.3 million. In Japan, monthly users fell to 22.3 million from 25.3 million, which the company attributes mainly to fewer users on eBookJapan, and Japanese revenue fell 18.0%, or 11.4% at constant currency.

Wattpad's app shrinks, ads grow

Users of the company's mobile apps fell 8.2% to 73.8 million, which WEBTOON attributes mainly to a decline in Wattpad app users; its webcomic apps slipped 0.9% to 44.8 million. Most of the overall rise came from outside Korea and Japan, where the company credits mainly growth in Wattpad's web users. Its costs in the quarter included professional fees and severance tied to what it calls a strategic restructuring initiative of the Wattpad business.

Advertising was the growing revenue stream. It rose 26.2% to $49.7 million, taking ads to 13.7% of revenue from 10.4% a year earlier (our calculation). Paid content revenue fell 3.9% to $275.5 million, though it rose 1.0% at constant currency, and revenue from IP adaptations fell 27.5% to $37.6 million. Total revenue fell 4.0% to $362.8 million, or rose 0.2% at constant currency.

The net loss narrowed to $7.5 million from $11.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, fell to $2.2 million from $5.1 million, which the company puts down mainly to higher foreign currency losses. It had about $548.4 million in cash and no debt.

A games bet in the outlook

WEBTOON expects fourth-quarter revenue of $371 million to $381 million, growth of 9.0% to 12.0% at constant currency, and founder and chief executive Junkoo Kim said the company was “confident in our return to double-digit revenue growth in the fourth quarter.” The outlook includes revenue from RI Games Holdings, a South Korean developer of games based on webcomic stories, after a second closing that WEBTOON anticipates but has not completed.

WEBTOON bought 19.99% of RI Games for about $35.3 million in August and would own about 60% for about $108.9 million in all. According to the quarterly report, the second closing depends on conditions that include a commercial launch milestone for a game being developed by an RI Games subsidiary.

Related: our report on Snap's switch to monthly users.