Finger Story

Finger Story was founded in 2018 and listed on KOSDAQ in December 2022 through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, Yuanta No.7 SPAC.

The company operates two core platforms: Mootoon, specializing in male-oriented wuxia and action genres, and Qtoon, focused on female-oriented romance and BL content, offering roughly 30,000 titles across webtoons, digital comics, web novels, and films.

It pursues an IP-integrated business model that acquires copyrights and publishing rights to leverage both original productions and secondary derivative works, aiming to expand its secondary licensing business as webtoon and web novel video adaptations are distributed globally through OTT platforms.

The webtoon, web novel, and digital comics segments generate revenue from dedicated fan bases, but content production and marketing cost burdens have continued to pressure profitability.

The controlling shareholder structure has shifted frequently in recent periods: it changed from Swanycoco to Global Tax Free in July 2025, then from Global Tax Free to Moon Yang-geun in December 2025. Swanycoco was also newly incorporated as a subsidiary in December 2025.

The company is classified under KOSDAQ IT services (media under the FICS classification), competing against both major domestic webtoon platforms and a range of smaller genre-specialized platforms.

Finger Story positions itself as an evolving comprehensive story business, expanding its content production, distribution, and sales scope.

In 2025, consolidated revenue came to KRW 17.30 billion, a slight decline from KRW 18.35 billion in 2024, while operating profit fell to KRW 847 million from KRW 1.51 billion, pushing the operating margin down from 8.2% to 4.9%.

In contrast, net income attributable to owners jumped to KRW 3.51 billion from KRW 1.68 billion in 2024, creating a divergence between falling operating profit and rising net income that appears attributable to non-operating, one-off gains.

Indeed, Q2 2025 owners' net income of KRW 3.91 billion far exceeded that quarter's operating profit of KRW 168 million, suggesting a substantial non-recurring item unrelated to core operations.

In Q3 2025, revenue of KRW 4.38 billion, operating profit of KRW 217 million, and net income of KRW 116 million showed a narrower gap between operating and bottom-line results.

The pattern shifted again in 2026: Q1 revenue rose year-over-year to KRW 4.99 billion, but operating profit turned negative at -KRW 108 million, with net income near breakeven at -KRW 9.5 million.

In Q2, revenue held firm at KRW 4.77 billion even as the operating loss widened to -KRW 345 million, yet net income swung to a KRW 606 million profit, again reflecting how non-operating swings have repeatedly driven the bottom line.

Looking further back, 2022 combined an operating profit of KRW 987 million on revenue of KRW 17.41 billion with a net loss attributable to owners of -KRW 3.61 billion, underscoring that the gap between operating results and final net income has been a recurring feature of the company's earnings. Net income was more stable in 2023-2024, at KRW 1.73 billion and KRW 1.68 billion respectively.

South Korea's webtoon and web novel industry has been reshaping around a structure where large platforms dominate while genre-specialized smaller platforms carve out niche audiences of dedicated fans.

Finger Story appears to have built a loyal readership through clear genre positioning in wuxia/action (Mootoon) and romance/BL (Qtoon).

The active distribution of webtoon and web novel video adaptations through domestic and global OTT platforms is considered a structural industry factor that offers secondary licensing revenue opportunities to IP-holding platforms.

However, given the sector's structurally heavy content production and marketing cost burden, revenue growth does not always translate directly into improved profitability.

Meanwhile, across the broader KOSDAQ market, the listing-maintenance market cap threshold was raised from KRW 15 billion to KRW 20 billion starting in the second half of 2026, exposing many small and mid-cap stocks, including content and IT services names, to warnings of possible administrative issue designation.

Reports indicate that as of August 2026, more than 100 KOSDAQ-listed companies had market capitalizations below KRW 20 billion, reflecting widespread pressure on the small-cap segment.

Financial authorities have since introduced a relief measure delaying the next threshold increase to KRW 30 billion from January 2027 to July 2027, meaning regulatory changes are likely to keep shaping listing-maintenance strategies for small-cap content companies going forward.

In August 2026, Finger Story's board approved a third-party-allotment capital increase raising about KRW 5 billion, with the company stating the proceeds would be used for operating capital including new content marketing expenses and content settlement fees.

This followed an earlier third-party-allotment raise of about KRW 3 billion in June, meaning the company completed two rounds of capital increases involving its major shareholder within 2026.

These raises can be interpreted both as funding for new content investment and as a response aimed at defending the market capitalization.

The company issued market-cap-shortfall warnings on July 29 and September 10, 2026, noting that its market cap had remained below KRW 20 billion for a certain number of trading days and that continued shortfall for additional trading days could trigger administrative issue designation.

The next regular filing, the Q3 2026 quarterly report, is due by the statutory deadline of November 16, 2026, and a key point to watch will be whether the operating losses seen in both quarters of the first half continue into the third quarter, or whether marketing investment translates into both revenue growth and a profitability recovery.

Given that the change to Moon Yang-geun as controlling shareholder is relatively recent, continuity of business strategy and any further shareholding changes also warrant attention.

With the next KOSDAQ market cap threshold increase scheduled for July 2027, continued small-cap status could increase listing-maintenance pressure over the medium term.