KT Reboots Their Digital Content Game
After a few minor (and major) setbacks, Korea Telecomunications is back with Millie's Library
On July 1st, 2025, Korea Telecom (KT), one of the largest mobile phone carriers in Korea, announced the launch of their new webnovel platform, “Millie’s Library”. An interesting development considering I’ve had their app on my phone for two weeks now.
But I digress.
“Millie’s Library” is a digital bookstore backed by one of the largest telecoms in Korea. And thanks to a deal with Kakao, they’ll also be adding to their library popular webnovels from Kakao Page. More importantly, this new platform represents a significant step forward into Korea’s content market.
Even if it is a slight retread.
A Series False-Starts
Just this year, Studio YesOne announced the finalization of their closure, a content production studio started as a joint venture between Yes24 and the ONE Store (backed by SK Telecom) to produce and manage webtoons and webnovels. What started as a partnership between one of Korea’s largest telecoms and one of the country’s largest online bookstores ended in failure.
Then, there have been the scores of webtoon libraries hosted on carrier and phone web storefronts. Webtoon platforms and studios have a long history of contracting with Apple Books and Google Play store alternatives to provide webtoons and webnovels on telecom operated platforms.
Just this year, KT announced they would be selling their stake in ROK Media, a webtoon production studio/publisher with a long history of hits and misses under their belt.
None of this is out of the norm. After all, businesses open and close and large telecom giants buying and selling stakes in smaller companies is just par for the course.
But, there is a specific question that needs answering: what about Blice and KTOON?
We Need to Talk About Storywiz
Storywiz is a Korean webtoon content provider (studio-slash-publisher) that’s been in the market since 2020 when KT first wanted a direct line into the webtoon industry.
Back in 2020, KT invested 10 billion KRW into producing webtoons and webnovels, intending to produce a “super IP” and control the resulting distribution and licensing through Storywiz.
For its part, Storywiz has a large library of produced and licensed webtoon and webnovels with several hits and more than a few consistent fan-favorites. More importantly, Storywiz owned and operates two smaller webtoon/webnovel platforms: Blice and KTOON.
If you haven’t heard of either, it’s not for lack of trying. The platforms have a few romance, romance-fantasy and traditionally-female-centric titles along with some action-fantasy crowd pleasers. In fact, a few months back when Manhwakyung announced their own closure, Storywiz was able to bring a few of the fledgling platform’s hits under their own umbrella.
Wait. What?
So what about Blice and KTOON?
Blice and KTOON are well-funded platforms operated by a subsidiary of one of Korea’s largest telecommunication carriers. And that carrier just launched a new platform, “Milly’s Library”.
Content companies operating similar or competing platforms isn’t unheard of. In Korea, Kakao operates both Kakao Webtoon and Kakao Page while Naver operates Series and Webtoon, not to mention Munpia for webnovels which also competes with Series.
But, a small post on eDaily might hint at the coming future.
“Millie’s Library” announced on June 30th that they would be acquiring both KTOON and Blice from Storywiz for 3.8 billion KRW. As of now, both Blice and KTOON have notices announcing that platform operations will be shifting away from Storywiz and to Millie’s Library.
Nothing’s certain, but it definitely looks like one of Korea’s biggest companies is shifting their content distribution strategy in order to get a foothold in the domestic market. And in a country where the vast majority of webtoon and webnovels are read on mobile phones, this has the potential to cause a market shift.
Not to mention… everyone using KT just got a free subscription to Milly’s Library.