Korean Box Office Hits New Milestone in 2015

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Korean Exhibition Industry Sets New Benchmark for 5th Consecutive

2015 proved to be another record-breaking year for box office in Korea as ticket sales reached a new peak, making it the fifth year on the trot that a new benchmark has been set. Despite a slow start to the year and the negative effect of the MERS Crisis on theater attendance, a strong second half and some major hits, including four films that went over the ten million viewer threshold (Ode to My Father, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Assassination and Veteran), catapulted the Korean box office to its best year ever.

All told, 217.23 million tickets were sold, which averaged out to 4.23 theater visits per capita in 2015, one of the highest film attendance rates in the world. The figure was up from 2015’s 215.07 million and represented the third time that theater attendance has topped 200 million admissions in Korea.

Ticket sales also reached a new peak in local currency for the seventh consecutive year, reaching KRW 1.72 trillion, however, poor exchange rates this year kept the dollar value (USD 1.46 billion) below 2014’s record USD 1.52 billion.

Local films accounted for 52% of the total, with 112.93 million admissions, which was the second best ever performance for Korean films, behind 2013’s 127.23 million viewers. ticket sales reached KRW 879.6 billion (USD 748.18 million), over last year’s KRW 820.63 billion (USD 751.49 million) from 107.7 million viewers.

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