Content platform Ridi is strengthening its fan-driven growth model. While major players such as Naver Webtoon seek to maximize revenue through secondary IP businesses, including adaptations for film and television, Ridi is aiming to revive sales of older titles by building stronger fan communities.
According to Ridi on Monday, sales of the manga titles “Magical Girl Incident” and “Kasane and Subaru” in October this year jumped 18-fold and 27-fold, respectively, from a year earlier. The increases came as existing readers voluntarily recommended the works on social media, generating word of mouth.
Sales of “A Healthy and Cultural Minimum Standard of Living” also surged 180-fold year-on-year in June after gaining traction on social media. Meanwhile, sales of “Arata Natsume’s Marriage” rose 170-fold in January from a year earlier after recommendation posts went viral in online communities.
The sales resurgence has also extended to older titles. “Hikaru no Go,” first published in South Korea in the early 2000s, saw its sales increase fivefold in one week in May from the previous week, driven by word of mouth among Generation Z readers.
“From Far Away,” a classic romance manga, also recorded a tenfold year-on-year increase in sales in February after recommendation posts spread through online communities. The cases show how once-popular works are finding new audiences among younger generations and experiencing renewed success.
Ridi is accelerating this trend by combining fandom-driven consumption, which progresses from reading to sharing and recommending, with the accessibility of e-books.
Even titles that are difficult to find in print because they are out of print can be accessed digitally, allowing readers who discover them on social media to purchase and enjoy them immediately. The platform is expanding opportunities for titles to reach new readers regardless of when they were published or how well-known they were initially.
With South Korea’s webtoon and manga market nearing saturation and increasingly reliant on dedicated fan bases, Ridi is also focusing on strengthening communities of fans with purchasing power. One way it is doing so is by extending online experiences into offline events.
On Nov. 7, Ridi will host a fan signing event in South Korea with manga artist Neo Shoko to mark the release of the eighth collected volume of “Phantom Busters.” A total of 100 customers who purchase a Korea-exclusive special edition will be selected to attend.
Ridi has also opened a dedicated store to make it easier for fans to buy merchandise. The company plans to expand its product range and build a virtuous cycle in which content discovery leads to collecting merchandise and finding new works.
A Ridi official said, “We are seeing a clear virtuous cycle in which one reader’s heartfelt recommendation leads to another reader’s first purchase.” The company plans to further enhance content discovery and curation to help readers explore a wider range of works and find titles that match their tastes.
