Last Year Electronic Document Business Revenue 9.5 Trillion Won... 1.7% Decrease from Previous Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] Last year, the sales scale of domestic electronic document businesses showed a slight decrease of 1.7% (173.7 billion KRW) compared to the previous year, totaling 9.5114 trillion KRW.

The Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) and the Ministry of Science and ICT announced the results of the "2022 Electronic Document Industry Survey" on the 19th, analyzing the current status of the domestic electronic document industry, a core sector of digital transformation. This survey targeted 509 domestic businesses engaged in electronic document operations and covered 33 items across seven areas related to 2021 industrial activities: ▲sales ▲overseas expansion status ▲technology level ▲workforce status ▲policy demand ▲challenges ▲impact of non-face-to-face trends.

By demand sector, the sales proportion was highest in business-to-business (B2B) transactions (73.1%), followed by business-to-government (B2G) (18.7%) and business-to-consumer (B2C) (8.2%). Regarding sales changes due to the spread of non-face-to-face trends after COVID-19, more than half of the businesses experienced stable conditions (64.8%) rather than an increase (9.2%).

The total workforce in the electronic document industry increased by 20.7% from the previous year to approximately 61,776 people, indicating steady inflow of new personnel alongside growing interest in the industry. Among them, the software development sector was the largest with 20,198 employees, followed by maintenance and operations (17,818), and marketing, sales, and customer management (8,501).

Businesses currently pursuing or already engaged in overseas expansion, including exports and establishing bases, accounted for 11.5%, showing increased demand for overseas expansion compared to the previous year. Preferred countries for expansion or planned expansion were Southeast Asia, Japan, and North America in that order. The biggest challenge in overseas expansion was identified as lack of local market information (18.0%). For government support to establish overseas expansion foundations, the most needed items were provision of overseas trend information (44.0%), improvement of domestic legal systems and establishment of global standards (18.2%), and opportunities for networking and promotion such as global fairs and exhibitions (17.3%).

The main challenges faced by electronic document businesses included labor cost shortages (20.3%), securing funds for technology development (R&D) (18.6%), and the economic downturn due to COVID-19 (10.9%). Additionally, the most needed information for business execution was market information such as statistics and trend analysis (22.7%). Regarding government support, respondents indicated the need for financial support (20.4%), educational support (18.3%), followed by provision of trend information (17.6%).

KISA Digital Infrastructure Headquarters Director Kwon Hyun-oh stated, "The importance of the electronic document industry is increasing in terms of data utilization for advancing into the digital transformation era," adding, "We will actively participate in revitalizing the electronic document industry by diversifying research reports and publications that provide market information such as industrial statistics and trend analysis."

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