The market share of Korea’s four major film distributors - CJ Entertainment, Showbox, Next Entertainment World (NEW) and Lotte Entertainment - recorded 47.7% in 2016. It is the first time that their market share has dipped lower than 50% since big four distributors system was established in 2008. Meanwhile, the market share of small and mid-sized distributors went up from a single digit to double digit figures. It was thanks to releasing various films including Spirits’ Homecoming which was distributed by WAW Pictures and did better than expected. 

According to CGV’s ‘Analysis of Korean Film Market Share per Distributor’ based on the Korean Film Council (KOFIC)’s data, big four distributors’ market share rose from 61.8% in 2009, 52.4% in 2010 to 70.3% in 2011. Since then, it was on the wane; 65.2% in 2012, 68.4% in 2013, 53.1% in 2014 and 55.8% in 2015. 

CJ Entertainment’s share fell from 36.1% to 17.3%, and that of Lotte Entertainment declined from 16.5% to 7.6%, compared to 2011. On the contrary, Showbox captured 13.5% of the market, up from 8.6%, and NEW crept up from 9.1% to 9.3%. Showbox released hit movies like A Violent Prosecutor, Tunnel and LUCK-KEY last year, while NEW was the only distributor to release a movie which recorded over 10 million viewers, TRAIN TO BUSAN. 

Meanwhile, minor distributors have almost doubled market share from 6.8% in 2011 to 13.1% of last year, while major companies’ share has declined. The number of films that were released in Korea in 2016 was 1,573, the largest in Korean film history.