In 2025, the domestic e-book subscription market is constantly evolving, redefining the reading culture. At the center of this is undoubtedly 'Millie's Library.' Millie's Library has become a 'comprehensive reading platform' that encompasses everything about reading, surpassing a simple e-book service and revealing an overwhelming presence. As of the first quarter of 2025, it has achieved approximately 8.9 million cumulative subscribers and recorded its highest quarterly sales, continuing its remarkable growth. It firmly maintains its top position, holding a dominant 63% share of the domestic e-book subscription market as of 2024. What strategies and innovations are behind this success? We will deeply analyze why Millie's Library is attracting attention in the e-book subscription market.
One of the most notable changes for Millie's Library in 2025 is the transition to a 'comprehensive reading platform.' Departing from the existing e-book-centered service, it boldly expanded its portfolio into the realm of story content, such as web novels and webtoons, and introduced 'Milly Story.' By launching web novel services in June 2025 and expanding to webtoons in September, it has established an environment where readers can consume various forms of content 'together and separately' within a single subscription model. This is a strategy to break down the boundaries of reading content and maximize subscription flexibility to secure Millie's Library's unique competitiveness. In line with the content consumption trend based on readers' tastes, it plans to secure bestsellers and non-exclusive content in the web novel and webtoon fields and service 10,000 contents within the year.
The core competitiveness of Millie's Library lies in its vast and high-quality content library. As of February 2025, it holds more than 180,000 contents and has built an overwhelming content portfolio by cooperating with 2,500 publishers, pre-empting 40% of new books and 70% of bestsellers. Furthermore, it is breathing new life into the publishing industry by discovering original content through its self-published platform, 'Milly Road,' and creating many success stories that lead to the reverse run of paper books after the e-book pre-publication. It is actively pursuing the expandability of story IPs, such as the production of audiobooks for the representative fantasy work 《All-Knowing Reader's Viewpoint》 and the webtoon adaptation of the romance work 《Gungno》, and establishing a virtuous cycle structure that goes beyond single content distribution and leads to the production of secondary content.
Millie's Library is constantly upgrading its reading experience through technological innovation. The AI recommendation algorithm 'Milly Road' has improved the accuracy of user preference analysis by 37%, creating an effect of increasing the re-visitation rate by 29%, and AI TTS (Text-to-Speech) and persona chatbots are innovating the audiobook experience and increasing the use rate of the 30-minute summary service by 45%. In particular, the 'Milly Pairing' service provides a seamless reading experience by freely switching between paper books, e-books, and audiobooks. The function of taking a paper book barcode to add it to the library and linking pages is evaluated as an innovative attempt to break down the boundaries of reading. In addition, it is supporting 'active reading' through 'note mode' functions such as underlining and recording impressions, and increasing readers' immersion.
Expansion beyond the online platform to offline is also a key factor that makes Millie's Library stand out. 'Milly Place' is a reading-friendly base business that connects books with various spaces in daily life, such as cafes, art galleries, and complex cultural spaces. It officially started operations in April 2025 and currently offers customer benefits at 40 locations nationwide, and it is scheduled to expand to 100 branches within the year. Millie Place is expanding its business area to a place for forming a taste-based community through reading, such as author book talks, fan meetings, and reading groups, beyond a simple reading space, and bringing the reading experience into daily life. This offline expansion contributes to solving the concerns of a decrease in the reading population and creating a new reading culture.
Millie's Library is continuing its solid growth, recording 40.7 billion won in cumulative sales and 8.5 billion won in cumulative operating profit in the first half of 2025, an increase of 17% and 29% respectively compared to the same period last year. This is analyzed as a result of both existing subscriber retention (lock-in effect) and the influx of new subscribers. The diversified sales channel strategy, such as telecom carrier bundling business and enterprise customer (B2B) expansion, also contributes to growth. In the future, Millie's Library is expected to further consolidate its position as a comprehensive reading platform, beyond the 'Netflix of the book world,' by continuously investing strategically in story content such as web novels and webtoons, and IT infrastructure. The actions of Millie's Library, which keeps the essence of reading while innovating in line with the changes of the times, are attracting more attention.
Q1: What services does Millie's Library offer?
A1: Millie's Library is a subscription-based reading platform where you can unlimitedly use various forms of reading content such as e-books, audiobooks, chat books, web novels, and webtoons. It provides an innovative reading experience with AI-based personalized recommendations, note mode, and Millie Pairing, and also operates an offline reading community through 'Milly Place.'
Q2: How diverse is Millie's Library's content?
A2: As of February 2025, it holds more than 180,000 reading contents and constantly updates new books and bestsellers through cooperation with major domestic publishers. It also provides a wide range of content, including original content through 'Milly Road' and story content such as web novels and webtoons.
Q3: Why is Millie's Library so popular?
A3: It lowers the barrier to entry to reading with a monthly unlimited subscription model and satisfies readers' tastes with various content formats such as AI-based personalized recommendations, audiobooks, and web novels/webtoons. In addition, strategies to bring the reading experience into daily life through offline expansion such as 'Milly Place' are also effective.
Q4: What are Millie's Library's main plans for 2025?
A4: In 2025, it plans to fully launch the 'Milly Story' service based on web novels and webtoons, aiming to become a 'comprehensive reading platform,' and expand 'Milly Place' to 100 places within the year to lead the offline reading culture. Strategic investment in content and IT infrastructure is also scheduled to continue.
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