The 2020 Content Industry Sales Fell -0.5% Exports Increased 6.3% Year on Year

The Infographic of estimated 2020 annual content industry size [Photo provided : KOCCIA]

The Ministry of Culture Sports and Tourism (Minister Hwang Hee) and the Korea Creative Content Agency (Acting Director Chung Kyung-mi hereinafter KOCCIA) published the 「Analysis Report on Trends in the Content Industry in the Second Half of 2020 and the Annual Content Industry」.

The report analyzed the second half of 2020 and annual trends in 11 genres in the content industry and estimated the size of the major industries such as sales and exports based on the results of a survey on business 2815 companies and Analyzing the data from 137 listed companies.

Despite the COVID 19 the content industry sought rapid countermeasures sales in the second half increased by 18.1% compared to the first half

In 2020 annual sales of the domestic content industry were estimated to 126 trillion won which fell 0.5% year-on-year. The content industry has continued to grow in succession but in the aftermath of COVID-19 it has recorded reverse growth in 12 years since the sales fell 1.1% year-on-year due to the 2008 global financial crisis. However as the consumption of content increased due to the spread of non-face-to-face lifestyle and business the decrease in sales was not as large as in 2008.

In particular last year COVID-19 led to a slight decrease in annual sales however sales in the second half were tallied at 68.2 trillion won 18.1 percent increased from the first half and 0.8 percent increased from the same period of 2019. This is analyzed as a result of the content industrys rapid search of countermeasures to digital transformation such as the launch of the K-pop platform and the evolution of Online Merges with Online (OMO) media commerce in response to the changes in the industrial environment caused by COVID-19.

Due to the prolonged COVID-19 it is revealed the gap between the untact consumption genres rapid progress as the first half of the year and the depression of genres with high portion of face to face sales or directly related to economic fluctuations. Based on annual sales in 2020 cartoon (21.2%) game (12.8%) and knowledge information (12.8%) recorded high growth rates compared to the previous year while sales of movies (-51.8%) animation (-17.5%) advertising (-11.3%) and music (-9.6%) decreased.

The exports exceeded $10 billion in 2020 Untact consumption genres such as games movies and webtoons are highly contributing.

The annual export of the domestic content industry in 2020 was about $ 10.83 billion up 6.3% from the previous year. This is interpreted as an achievement even in COVID-19 following 2019 when exports surpassed $10 billion for the first time due to the success of Korean Waves representative contents such as BTS and director Bong Joon-hos film Parasite.

Games which account for 66.9% of the exports led exports with sales of about $7.25 billion up 8.8% from a year earlier. Also there was a big growth in publishing (61.1%) movie (43.0%) and comic (40.9%) genres. In publishing exports of printed materials other than books increased significantly and films got over the fall of 0.9% last year caused by the decline in local distribution revenue and recorded increased exports due to global OTT copyright sales. On the other hand animation (-37.0%) advertising (-23.3%) and music (-8.9%) genres which were massively damaged by the cancellation of overseas face-to-face events such as trade fairs and concerts recorded a decline.

The report also noted the way of consuming contents that has changed due to COVID-19 including Korean novels which recorded the greatest sales growth rate of 30.1% (as of September 2020) and exports of K-pop records which surged 78.2% year-on-year (as of November 2020). It also looked at notable new industrial trends amid accelerating digital transformation including Metaverse K-pop platforms which have emerged as key platforms for content convergence K-pop IPs expanding in connection with virtual characters and competition among OTTs at home and abroad to take the lead in content production and distribution.

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