OTT video services market size South Korea 2012-2021

The over-the-top (OTT) video service market in South Korea has grown rapidly during the last five years, generating approximately 780.1 billion South Korean won in revenue in 2020. According to industry estimates, this growth will not slow down soon and the market value will reach at least one trillion South Korean won next year. OTT services are media services offered over the internet directly to the consumer, such as video-on-demand services.

Which Video-on-Demand (VoD) services are the most popular in South Korea?

OTT video services have become popular globally, even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost two-thirds of the South Korean population are using OTT video services, a large proportion even using multiple services at the same time. The most popular video streaming application is YouTube. While YouTube offers the paid membership model YouTube Premium, most users enjoy it on an Advertisement-Video-on-Demand (AVoD) basis, watching short advertisements to watch the video. The leading service in the Subscription-Video-on-Demand market is by far Netflix.

 Consumer behavior 

  The decision to subscribe to a new streaming service was mostly driven by the content that each service offered, although in 2020, during the outbreak of COVID-19, spending more time at home also played a big role in it.
While YouTube is also often used to listen to music, SVoD services only offer video content, the most popular OTT content category being TV programs.