Naver Webtoon, Korea's leading webtoon provider, presents its webtoon series during New York Comic Con held in New York, Oct. 11. Yonhap

The Korean webtoon industry continued to post strong growth last year on the back of growing popularity at home and abroad and successful adaptations into dramas and films, industry data showed Thursday.

The total sales of the local web-based comic market amounted to 1.57 trillion won ($1.23 billion) in 2021, up 48.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the state-run Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA).

The annual revenue was about four times the 379.9 billion won in 2017, when the data were first compiled by the agency.

Webtoons, a type of digital comic read on computers and mobile devices, were the main source of revenue by taking up 76.5 percent of the total.

By category, paid content accounted for 63.2 percent, followed by overseas content with 17.4 percent, webtoon publications with 6 percent, and sales of intellectual property (IP) rights with 2.8 percent.

Last year, webtoon companies newly established their in-house production studios and produced books and merchandise goods using IP rights to diversify their sources of income.

Meanwhile, a survey on 846 webtoon writers showed that the yearly income of a cartoonist who has published at least one digital work in the past year, was an average 118.7 million won in 2021, up 46.2 percent from a year ago.

Among them, seven out of 10 were females, and those in their teens and 20s accounted for a combined 80.7 percent.

The Korean webtoon industry has been thriving recently as it has carved out a unique role as a source of fresh ideas for producers and screenwriters on the entertainment scene.

Several hit TV series, including "Reborn Rich," "Extraordinary Attorney Woo", and "All of Us Are Dead," were adapted from renowned web-based comics. (Yonhap)