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The Korean Film Council (KOFIC - Chairman, Kim Sae-hoon) reported yesterday that the Korean film industry topped KRW 2 trillion in sales last year for the first time, including all revenue streams such as exhibition, overseas sales and digital sales. Revenue in 2014 reached a record KRW 2.03 trillion (USD 1.84 billion), an increase of 7.6% over the previous year.

 

The largest chunk of that came from the exhibition sector, which recorded over 200 million admissions for the second time, reaching 215.06 million viewers. Exhibition sales jumped 7.3% over 2013 for a new record of KRW 1.66 trillion (USD 1.51 billion). However, while Korean film admissions topped 100 million for the third time (107.7 million, 50.1%), they were down 15.4% from 2013, while foreign films cracked the 100 million benchmark for the first time after climbing 24.8% year-on-year (107.36 million, 49.9%).

 

Korea’s digital marketplace for film, which includes IPTV, digital cable TV and online streaming, rose 11% to set a new benchmark at KRW 297.1 billion (USD 270 million). Meanwhile, overseas sales increased 6.1%, reaching USD 63.08 million. Of those, USD 26.38 million were for film sales, down 28.2% (largely due to Snowpiercer’s success in 2013), while exports of film services were up 63.9% to USD 36.7 million.

 

Despite the total increase in revenue, the return on investment rate for Korean films fell sharply down to only 0.3%. The figure stood at 14.1% the previous year and 13.3% in 2012.