WEBTOON Entertainment Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results

Junkoo Kim, Founder and CEO said, “We are pleased to report solid fourth quarter results, with revenue in line with our expectations and Adjusted EBITDA above the top end of our guidance range. For the full year, we delivered revenue growth of approximately 4% on a constant currency basis and Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $19 million, marking our third consecutive year of growth and profitability.”

Kim continued, “These results were supported by several key milestones in 2025, most notably the establishment of strategic relationships with industry leaders, including Disney and Warner Bros. Animation. We believe these partnerships will help expand both the overall comics industry and the webcomics category, bringing more readers to our platform and generating more opportunities for our creator community over the long-term. As we enter 2026, we remain confident in our strategy and are focused on growing and deepening engagement across our platform to foster a stronger, more vibrant fandom.”

First Quarter 2026 Outlook

For the first quarter 2026, the Company expects:

• Revenue growth on a constant currency basis in the range of (1.5%) – 1.5%. This represents revenue in the range of $317-$327 million, based on current FX rates.

• Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $0.0-$5.0 million, representing an Adjusted EBITDA Margin in the range of 0.0% – 1.5%.

Conference Call & Webcast Details

As previously disclosed, the Company will host a webcast and conference call on March 3, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, to discuss the Company’s financial results for its fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025.

A live webcast of the conference call will be available online at https://ir.webtoon.com/.

For those unable to listen to the live webcast, an archived version will be available at the same location for up to one year.

About WEBTOON Entertainment Inc.

WEBTOON Entertainment is a leading global entertainment company and home to some of the world’s largest storytelling platforms. As the global leader and pioneer of the mobile webcomic format, WEBTOON Entertainment has transformed comics and visual storytelling for fans and creators.

With its CANVAS UGC platform empowering anyone to become a creator, and a growing roster of superstar WEBTOON Originals creators and series, WEBTOON Entertainment’s passionate fandoms are the new face of pop culture. WEBTOON Entertainment’s adaptations are available on Netflix, Prime Video, Crunchyroll and other screens around the world, and the company’s content partners include Discord, HYBE and DC Comics, among many others.

With approximately 160 million monthly active users, WEBTOON Entertainment’s IP & Creator Ecosystem of aligned brands and platforms include WEBTOON, Wattpad – the world’s leading webnovel platform – WEBTOON Productions, Studio N, Studio LICO, WEBTOON Unscrolled, LINE Manga and eBookJapan, among others.

Forward Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and involves risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements cover all matters which are not historical facts and include, without limitation, statements or guidance regarding or relating to our future financial position, results of operations and growth, plans and objectives for future capabilities, ability to attract users in both our core and underpenetrated geographies, ability to grow Paid Content, Advertising and IP Adaptations businesses, the impact of our product development initiatives, including our use of AI, our financial condition and liquidity, and other statements concerning the success of our business and strategies. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “goal,” “seek,” “believe,” “project,” “estimate,” “expect,” “strategy,” “future,” “likely,” “may,” “should,” “will” and similar references to future periods. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made. They are not assurances of future performance and are based only on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on any of these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the forward-looking statements contained in this release are based on reasonable assumptions, you should be aware that many factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: weakness in the economy, market trends, uncertainty and other conditions in the markets in which we operate, and other geopolitical or macroeconomic factors beyond our control; inability to attract, empower, properly support or incentivize our creators; inability to retain, attract and engage with our users; inability to anticipate, understand and appropriately respond to market trends and changing user preferences; failure to retain or increase our paying users; failure to effectively operate in highly competitive markets; inability to innovate and expand our Advertising business; inability to continue to diversify our monetization strategy or to increase revenues from IP Adaptations; failure to control our content-related costs; exposure to significant legal proceedings and regulatory investigations which may result in significant expenses, fines and reputational damage; failure to provide a safe online environment for children; exposure to claims that we violated third parties’ intellectual property rights; failure to obtain, maintain, protect or enforce our proprietary and intellectual property rights; exposure to liability and adverse effects from the use of AI; rise of conflicts of interests with NAVER Corporation, our majority stockholder; and other risks and uncertainties set forth under the caption “Risk Factors” in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, and in other filings we make with the SEC in the future.

Additionally, forward-looking statements regarding past trends or activities should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. Other than in accordance with our legal or regulatory obligations, we undertake no obligations to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures & Definitions

This release contains certain financial information that is not presented in conformity with U.S. GAAP. These non-GAAP measures include Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Earnings Per Share (Adjusted EPS), revenue on a constant currency basis and revenue growth on a constant currency basis.

We believe that these non-GAAP measures provide users of the Company’s financial information with additional meaningful information to assist in understanding financial results and assessing the Company’s performance from period to period. Management believes these measures are important indicators of operations because they exclude items that may not be indicative of our core operating results and provide a better baseline for analyzing trends in our underlying businesses, and they are consistent with how business performance is planned, reported and assessed internally by management and the board of directors of the Company. Our non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation, or as substitutes for, financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. Non-GAAP measures have limitations as they do not reflect all the amounts associated with our results of operations as determined in accordance with GAAP, and should only be used to evaluate our results of operations in conjunction with the corresponding or the most directly comparable GAAP measures. We strongly encourage investors and shareholders to review our financial statements and publicly filed reports in their entirety and not to rely on any single financial measure.

A reconciliation is provided at the end of this release for each historical non-GAAP financial measure to the most directly comparable financial measure stated in accordance with U.S. GAAP. We encourage investors and shareholders to review the related U.S. GAAP financial measures and the reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures, and not to rely on any single financial measure to evaluate our business. We do not provide a reconciliation of forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures on a forward-looking basis because we are unable to predict with reasonable certainty or without unreasonable effort non-recurring items that may arise in the future.

Adjusted EBITDA: We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss), adjusted to remove the impact of interest income, interest expense, income tax expense (credit) and depreciation and amortization, with further adjustments to eliminate the effects of loss on equity method investments, effect of applying the valuation method of fair value through profit or loss, impairment of goodwill, non-cash stock-based compensation and certain other non-recurring costs.

Adjusted EBITDA Margin: We define Adjusted EBITDA Margin as Adjusted EBITDA divided by revenue.

Adjusted Earnings Per Share (Adjusted EPS): We define Adjusted Earnings Per Share as Earnings Per Share before interest expense, interest income, income tax expense and depreciation and amortization with further adjustments to eliminate the effects of loss on equity method investments, effect of applying the valuation method of fair value through profit or loss, impairment of goodwill, non-cash stock-based compensation and certain other non-recurring costs. We calculate Adjusted Earnings Per Share by making the adjustments described herein from Net Income (Loss) and dividing by basic and diluted weighted average shares of common stock outstanding, respectively, for the applicable period.

Revenue on a Constant Currency Basis: We define revenue on a constant currency basis as revenue adjusted to remove the impact of foreign currency rate fluctuations and the impact of deconsolidated and transferred operations. We calculate revenue on a constant currency basis in a given period by applying the average currency exchange rates in the comparable period of the prior year to the local currency revenue in the current period. We calculate revenue on a constant currency basis in each of our revenue streams – Paid Content, Advertising and IP Adaptations – using the same method as laid out herein.

Revenue Growth on a Constant Currency Basis: We define revenue growth on a constant currency basis as period-over-period growth rates of revenue, adjusted to remove the impact of foreign currency rate fluctuations and the impact of deconsolidated and transferred operations. We calculate revenue growth (as a percentage) on a constant currency basis by determining the increase in current period revenue over prior period revenue, where current period foreign currency revenue is translated using prior period average currency exchange rates.

______________
^1.      Includes amounts due from related parties of $55,156 and $59,495 as of December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.
^2.      Includes amounts due from related parties of $4,730 and $9,258 as of December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.
^3.      Includes amounts due from related parties of $33,913 and $32,072 as of December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.
^4.      Includes amounts due to related parties of $18,765 and $17,173 as of December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.
^5.      Includes amounts due to related parties of $6,849 and $5,562 as of December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.
^6.      Includes amounts due to related parties of $5,221 and $3,506 as of December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.
^7.      Includes amounts due to related parties of $5,371 and $9,519 as of December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.

1. Includes amounts earned from related parties of $21,277 and $10,957 for the three months ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively and $74,297 and $72,228 for the year ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.

2. Includes amounts incurred from related parties of $26,517 and $28,718 for the three months ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively and $111,254 and $96,498 for the year ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.

3. Includes amounts incurred from related parties of $(1,799) and $(2,830) for the three months ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively and $(9,339) and $(7,691) for the year ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.

4. Includes amounts incurred from related parties of $9,683 and $8,812 for three months ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively and $31,249 and $32,478 for the year ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.

5. Includes amounts earned from related parties of $418 and $457 for three months ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively and $1,687 and $3,592 for the year ended December 31, 2025, and December 31, 2024, respectively.

Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Measures

In addition to adjustments for foreign exchange fluctuations, we have also further adjusted revenue to exclude the impacts of deconsolidated and transferred operations to show growth or loss exclusive of these changes (“Revenue on a Constant Currency Basis”). Revenue on a Constant Currency Basis is a Non-GAAP metric that management believes adds value but has its limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP.

The following table presents a reconciliation of revenue to revenue on a constant currency basis, and ARPPU to ARPPU on a constant currency basis, respectively, for each of the periods presented.

¹ ARPPU is calculated by taking Paid Content revenue and dividing it by the number of monthly paid users (“MPU”) for such month, averaged over each month in the given period. ARPPU on a constant currency basis is calculated by dividing Paid Content revenue on a constant currency basis by the number of MPU for such month, averaged over each month in the given period. Where each metric is country specific, the numerator is Paid Content revenue on a constant currency basis by country and the denominator is users by country.

The following table presents a reconciliation of net loss to EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA Margin for each of the periods presented.

Contact Information

Investor Relations
Soohwan Kim, CFA
investor@webtoon.com

Corporate Communications
Kiel Hume
webtoonpress@webtoon.com