Naver’s US$600 million acquisition of Wattpad, announced early this year, is completed just as potential competition arrives from Amazon’s new Kindle Vella and Seoul’s Kakao.
In Seoul, a line of bus passengers and their cell phones during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Image – Getty iStockphoto: Wonseok Jang
South Korea’s Kakao Is Also a Buyer: Radish and Tapas
In January, as you’ll recall, it was announced that the Toronto-based Wattpad was to be acquired by Naver, a South Korean Internet search engine conglomerate, the home of Webtoon, a digital comics platform.
In its messaging overnight (May 10), the Canadian company has reiterated its earlier citation of the acquisition being a cash and stock transaction valued at more than $US600 million. It also restates that Wattpad’s co-founders Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen will continue their direction of Wattpad, and that the company will remain based in Canada. Lau, who is CEO, is to report to the Jun-koo Kim, the found