Daum

**Daum** (다음) is a South Korean web portal headquartered in Seoul. It was founded in 1995, with its namesake portal launching in **May 1997**, making it the country's first major web portal. It gained early prominence through **Hanmail**, its free email service, and later **Daum Cafe**, a community platform that became central to its identity. The portal offers email, messaging, news, search, shopping, and community services, and it operates the blogging platform **Tistory**. For much of its history, Daum was one of South Korea's two dominant portals, alongside Naver.

Daum was also a pioneer in digital comics, launching **Daum Webtoon in 2003**, widely considered the world's first official webtoon platform. It produced roughly **1,300 original webtoon IPs** with around **1,000 creators**, including works like *Misaeng* and *Moss* that became hit screen adaptations. In **August 2021**, the service was transferred to Kakao Entertainment and relaunched as **Kakao Webtoon**. On **March 31, 2026**, Daum stopped providing webtoon content directly on its portal after its partnership with Kakao Entertainment ended. Later that year, Kakao announced that Kakao Webtoon would be merged into **KakaoPage** by the end of 2026.

In **2014**, Daum Communications merged with Kakao Corp. and was briefly renamed **Daum Kakao Corp.**, a transitional identity for the same legal entity. In **September 2015**, the parent company became **Kakao Corp.**, and "Daum" survived only as a service brand. On **December 1, 2025**, the portal separated from Kakao and transferred to **AXZ Corp.**, which was renamed **Daum Co., Ltd.** in **July 2026**. Daum is now repositioned around **AI personalization, short-form video (Loop), and interactive community features (TimeTalk)**, though its domestic search share has fallen to roughly **3 percent**.