Content Industry Exports Surpass 10 Trillion Won... Up 9.1% Year-on-Year

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Announces 2018 Content Industry Statistical Survey Results

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] The annual export value of Korea's content industry, including games, characters, and music, has exceeded 10 trillion won.

According to the '2019 Content Industry Statistical Survey Results' announced by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on the 19th, the export value of Korea's content industry in 2018 was $9.61504 billion (approximately 10.5 trillion won), an increase of 9.1% compared to the previous year.

The largest export value was from the game industry at $6.41149 billion, followed by characters ($745.14 million), knowledge information ($633.88 million), and music ($564.24 million). Due to the influence of the Korean Wave, the content industry’s export value grew at an average annual rate of 16.2% over five years from 2014.

The import value in 2018 increased by 1.3% from the previous year to $1.21977 billion, and the trade balance recorded a surplus of $8.39527 billion (approximately 9.23 trillion won), up from $7.61 billion the previous year.

The domestic content industry’s sales revenue in 2018 was 119.6066 trillion won, a 5.6% increase from the previous year. Sales increased in all sectors except the animation industry (-5.4%). In particular, broadcasting (9.5%), comics (8.9%), and games (8.7%) showed high growth rates.

The largest sales revenue was in the publishing industry at 20.9538 trillion won, followed by broadcasting (19.7622 trillion won), advertising (17.2119 trillion won), knowledge information (16.291 trillion won), and games (14.2902 trillion won).

The number of workers in the domestic content industry in 2018 was 667,437, a 3.5% increase from the previous year. Approximately 51,000 new jobs have been created over the past five years.

This statistics were compiled based on surveys conducted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism targeting businesses in nine industries (publishing, comics, music, games, animation, advertising, characters, knowledge information, content solutions), as well as data from the Korean Film Council and the Korea Communications Commission on the film and broadcasting industries.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.