South Korea posted a surplus in its intellectual property rights trade balance in the first half of 2021. The balance recorded an $850 million profit in the first six months, according to the Bank of Korea's preliminary report in September. Analysts say that exports of culture and art-related copyrights from Korean music and films drove the profit.
Source: Analysis of the OTT Industry and Export of K-content (issued in April 2021 by the Overseas Economic Research Institute at The Export-Import Bank of Korea), Korea’s Subtotal IP Trade Balance in H1 2021 (issued in September 2021 by the Bank of Korea)
The culture and art-related copyrights trade balance logged a yearly profit for the first time in 2020. The balance also posted a surplus in the first half of this year, backed by exports of K-drama and movies.
Culture and art-related copyrights trade balance
Unit: million dollars
Source: The Bank of Korea
The global OTT market size in 2020 reached $110 billion, up about 18% from the previous year. It is expected to grow about 15% in 2021 to $126 billion. Although the Korean OTT market size was only 108.5 billion won ($91.7 million) in 2012, it continued to grow 28% annually and expanded to 780.1 billion won in 2020.
Global OTT market size
Unit: billion dollars
Source: Boston Consulting Group
Korea’s OTT market size
Unit: billion won
Source: Korea Communications Commission
Global OTT companies are competitively announcing their investment plan to secure K-content, aware that K-dramas and K-movies are indispensable for expansion in the Asian market. Particularly, Netflix has increased investment in K-content to 550 billion won in 2021, a 65% year-on-year increase. Global OTT investment in the production of K-dramas and K-movies is expected to grow for some time.
Netflix’s investment in K-content
Unit: billion won
Source: Netflix
Global OTT companies’ content investment in 2020
Unit: billion dollars
Source: STATISTA, Forbes
During the COVID-19 pandemic, offline sales in movies significantly dropped as movie theaters were temporarily closed. However, digital sales were decent as the movies were released on global OTT channels. Even post-pandemic, OTTs' role in the movie industry is expected to be greater than in the past.
Sales in K-movies
Unit: billion won
Source: Korean Film Council
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