Both in Japan and overseas, an almost overwhelming variety of ways to read digital manga are available to potential readers: Azuki, comico, Mangamo, Manga Plus, Zebrack… to name just a few. It was always difficult, however, to know which service truly stood at the top as information on revenue wasn’t readily revealed to the public. That is until Comic Cmoa, one of Japan’s most popular digital manga services, took the bold step of announcing its sales figures for the first time.
On September 6, operating company NTT Solmare Corporation held an Ebook Industry Strategy Presentation where CEO Toshiaki Asahi announced that the company’s total revenue for Q1 of 2024 amounted to a whopping 81.2 billion yen (around 569 million USD). Furthemore, the company reported taking in over 900 million yen (6.3 million USD) on the highest day of single trading. It’s worth noting that all of these figures include sales from both Comic Cmoa and MangaPlaza, which the company operates for the American market.
According to the company’s own research, this would put them at the top of the entire ebook industry, let alone just manga. For those living in Japan, this won’t come as much of a surprise: Comic Cmoa has been one of the most popular ways to read digital manga for a long time now, mainly due to the large selection of titles from a variety of publishers and its consumer-friendly pricing model. What is unexpected, however, is what NTT Solmare hopes to achieve by revealing this domination.
Speaking during the press conference, Asahi remarked that “We’d like to take this opportunity of [Comic Cmoa]’s 20th anniversary to become more transparent, both for our company’s growth as well as the industry.” It’s obvious as to why a company might want to reveal its sales figures for its own sake: it creates a strong and healthy brand image, but the call to the rest of the industry is unusual. In many ways, it almost reads like a call for everyone else to try and catch up.
Looking more broadly at the manga industry both domestically and abroad, NTT Solmare predicts that the market will grow from a total worth of 645 billion yen (4.5 billion USD) in 2023 to 800 billion yen (5.6 billion USD) by 2028. Some key factors are said to be the growth of vertical-scrolling ‘webtoon’ manga, the rise of Korean entertainment, the popularity of Japanese content abroad, as well as the use of AI and other productivity tools to raise efficiency in the creative process.
With the market continuing to grow, it remains to be seen whether NTT Solmare and Comic Cmoa’s bold declaration of dominance will inspire other companies to try for the crown. Particularly outside of Japan, it feels like the landscape is wide open, so expect to see big changes in the future.
