WEBTOON Entertainment showed Q1 revenue growth in constant currency, but flipped to a loss from a profit in the previous year, the company reported for Q1 2025.  Sales were down 0.3%, from $326.7 million in Q1 2024 to $325.7 million in Q1 this year, but up 5.3% in constant currency, behind growth in all three revenue streams (Paid Content, Advertising, and IP Adaptations).

The profit decline was substantial, from $6.2 million profit in Q1 2024 to a $22.0 million loss in Q1 2025, which the company attributed to the expense of being a public company and increased marketing expense.

WEBTOON is reporting significant investment and growth in its English-language platform.  Monthly Active Users in English were up 19% in the period, but the company noted that English webcomics have one of the highest proportions of light users.  That is seen as a substantial opportunity to increase engagement, and WEBTOON is implementing AI-powered personalized recommendations, dynamic video content previews, and a new onboarding process to help it make more effective recommendations to users and expand the number of series they follow.

Global MAUs were down 10.5% compared to the year-ago period, which the company attributed in the conference call to Wattpad web novel user declines, particularly in Japan, where a Wattpad upgrade affected search engine indexing.

WEBTOON reported big losses for Q4 and full year 2024 on high sales (see "WEBTOON Reports Loss").