Strategic move targets Germany’s fastest-growing publishing segment
Bastei Lübbe AG, Germany’s leading independent publishing group, will acquire webtoon specialist Papertoons effective 1 January 2026, cementing its position in Europe’s most dynamic publishing category.
The Frankfurt-listed company takes over distribution from 1 February 2026 while retaining Papertoons’ entire team.
Market Context: Explosive Growth
The acquisition arrives as webtoons – vertically scrollable digital comics from South Korea – represent publishing’s highest-growth format. The Germany webtoon market is projected to grow at a 29% CAGR through 2030, while the global manga market reached $14 billion in 2024.
This follows a 75% surge in German manga sales and 30% growth in comics overall, with the category now comprising 9% of fiction sales.
Papertoons, founded in 2022 as Germany’s first publisher exclusively specialising in webtoons and manhwas, imports hit formats from South Korea and China for high-quality print editions. The platform targets digitally native Gen Z readers – a demographic identified by the Börsenverein as driving Germany’s book market growth.
Community-First Integration
CEO Soheil Dastyari framed the deal as accelerating Bastei Lübbe’s community-driven strategy: “Papertoons demonstrates how passion, expertise and close ties to the community can shape a strong brand – this is very much in line with our own approach”. The publisher will leverage its 14-imprint infrastructure and €114 million revenue base to scale Papertoons’ operations across print and digital channels.
The View From The Beach
The move mirrors HarperCollins’ July 2025 acquisition of Crunchyroll’s French and German manga operations, signalling major publishers’ race to control digital-native IP.
For Bastei Lübbe, the acquisition addresses a critical gap in its entertainment portfolio while capturing value from a segment where community engagement directly translates to monetisation through subscriptions, merchandise, and transmedia adaptations.
The deal exemplifies how traditional publishers are vertically integrating specialist digital-native brands to access younger demographics and experiment with faster release cycles informed by real-time reader analytics.
Let me conclude this with a reminder: Gen Z readers are a demographic identified by the Börsenverein as driving Germany’s book market growth.
I explored a similar phenomenon in Indonesia a few days ago.
This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsfeed.
