Last Year, Korean Content Sales Reached 126 Trillion Won... First Contraction Since the 2008 Financial Crisis

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] Last year, Korea's content industry recorded a decline for the first time in 12 years due to the impact of COVID-19.

According to the "2020 Second Half and Annual Content Industry Trend Analysis Report" released on the 28th by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency, the annual sales of the domestic content industry last year were 126 trillion won, down 0.5% from the previous year. This is the first decline in 12 years since the content industry sales dropped 1.1% during the 2008 global financial crisis.

Although the annual sales decreased slightly last year, the sales in the second half were 68.2 trillion won, up 18.1% compared to the first half and 0.8% compared to the same period last year, showing a recovery trend toward the latter half. This is analyzed as a result of the content industry quickly seeking countermeasures for digital transformation, such as launching K-pop platforms and evolving OMO (Online Merges with Offline) media commerce, in response to changes in the industrial environment caused by COVID-19.

The degree of decline varied by genre. Based on annual sales last year, ▲Manhwa (21.2%) ▲Games (12.8%) ▲Knowledge Information (12.8%) recorded high growth rates compared to the previous year. On the other hand, ▲Movies (-51.8%) ▲Animation (-17.5%) ▲Advertising (-11.3%) ▲Music (-9.6%) saw a decrease in sales.

Despite the COVID-19 crisis, exports of the content industry performed well. The annual export amount of the domestic content industry last year was about 10.83 billion dollars (about 12.2 trillion won), up 6.3% from the previous year. This is attributed to the strong performance of representative Hallyu content such as BTS and director Bong Joon-ho's film "Parasite."

By genre, 'Games,' which accounted for 66.9% of total exports, led the performance with about 7.25 billion dollars, an 8.8% increase from the previous year. ▲Publishing (61.1%) ▲Movies (43.0%) ▲Manhwa (40.9%) also showed significant growth. Publishing exports of printed materials other than books increased significantly, and movies overcame a 0.9% decline last year due to reduced local distribution revenue, with export growth influenced by global online video service (OTT) rights sales. Conversely, genres that suffered from cancellations of overseas face-to-face events such as concerts recorded declines: ▲Animation (-37.0%) ▲Advertising (-23.3%) ▲Music (-8.9%).

This report analyzed major trends in the second half and annual performance of 11 content industry genres last year. It estimated the main industry scale such as sales and exports through a survey of 2,815 businesses and analysis of data from 137 listed companies.

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