International Market for Korean Pop Culture Continues to Grow

While the overall Korean market suffered a downturn in 2020 owing to the COVID pandemic, recently released figures reveal that exports for Korean content boomed 16.3%, driven by acclaimed films, dramas, popular musical acts, webtoons and video games.

Korea’s pop culture, often referred to as ‘Hallyu’ or the Korean wave, notched up exports worth USD 11.9 billion in 2020, up from the USD 10.25 billion recorded a year earlier, according to data provided by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The upturn was particularly impressive in light of the fact that overall Korean exports contracted 5.5% owing to the global health crisis.

Among Korea’s entertainment sectors, the biggest export rises came from the publishing industry (61.1%), followed by film at 43% (buoyed by the smash success of Parasite), webtoon (36.3%), broadcasting (28.5%) and gaming (23.1%).

The gaming industry remained the most lucrative pocket of the export market, with sales reaching USD 8.19 billion. With the rise of global popularity for dramas and K-pop, total exports for the broadcasting and music sectors stood at USD 692.79 million and USD 679.63 million, respectively.

Meanwhile, on the domestic side, the situation was a little different and could not escape the effects of the pandemic. Overall sales for the Korean content market edged up 1.2% to KRW 128.29 trillion (USD 107.48 billion), up from KRW 126.71 trillion a year earlier, largely thanks to gaming and webtoon and the rise in demand for online content, while other industries relying more on bricks-and-mortar businesses suffered declines in sales. These included the film industry, which dipped 53.6% owing to the sluggish theatrical market. The largest share of the local content market was held by broadcasting, which generated KRW 21.96 trillion (USD 18.4 billion) in sales.

Consequently, the content industry workforce also shrank by 5.9%, down to 642,086 workers, while the number of businesses dipped 4.4% to 99,551.