KAIST Information & Media Research Center Analysis

        Korean Entertainment market; 18 trillion won yearly; World’s 8th largest market.

        50% growth in 3 years…SM and YG Entertainment lead globalization. 

The movie ‘Miss Granny’ has been remade in Chinese style as ‘Once again in our 20s’ (CJ E&M share over 50%) and drew more than ten million moviegoers for the first time in the history of joint movie production between Korea and China. This milestone was set only after 17 days since the premiere. The sales from tickets are now over 607 hundred million won. CJ E&M is expecting to make the largest profit (net gain of over 60 hundred million won) in the Chinese movie market with Korean contents.

As Korea’s movie and music business achieves rapid growth, the whole entertainment market also has increased grown in the last three years. According to KAIST Information & Media Research Center, the Korean entertainment market in 2013 was 18 trillion won, a 46% increase since 2010. It also entered the ‘top 10’ chart for national entertainment markets; Korea’s entertainment market was ranked 11th in 2010.

Globalization of K-Pop through Youtube.

The rapid growth of the Korean entertainment market can be attributed to Korean movies and K-Pop which are well received in foreign markets. The Korean music industry has ceaselessly tried to globalize its content and it has managed to globally publicize K-Pop. SM and YG Entertainment utilized channels such as Youtube to promote its celebrities to the world and this effort eventually led to K-Pop’s success.

In 2011, YG Entertainment collaborated with Avex Group, the largest Japanese entertainment firm, to establish YGEX to penetrate into the Asian market. Moreover, it made an exclusive contract with China’s Tencent regarding the supply of contents.

The movie industry doubled in size over 3 years.

The movie industry also experienced rapid growth. What was $1.54 billion in 2010 grew to a $29.60 billion market in 2013.

CJ CGV, which possesses the most movie screens in Korea, ranked 17th in KAIST’s evaluation of overall competence. In 2011, CJ CGV took over the Vietnamese theater chain Megastar and switched the brand name to CGV.

Korea’s game firms also remain strong in the global game industry. Three firms were ranked in the ‘top 20’ in the evaluation of overall competence: Nexon (6th), NHN Entertainment (9th), NCSoft (15th). These companies all were ranked in the ‘top 10’ in profitability and growth potential.

Korea has the top-level mobile infrastructure and hence, the growth potential of its entertainment industry is high. However, in the music industry, the advent of streaming services led to a decline in sales per song.

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