South Korea’s Content Industry Reaches 161.48 Trillion Won in Revenue, Driven by Music and Film Exports

South Korea’s content industry continued to show growth in both revenue and exports in 2025. According to the “Q4 2025 and Annual Content Industry Trend Analysis Report” released by the Korea Content Agency, the annual revenue of the domestic content industry increased by 2.6% to 161.4839 trillion won compared to the previous year. This report provided insights into the industry’s scale and trends by conducting comprehensive analyses of 11 different content genres, including business surveys, financial data from listed companies, and basic industry statistics.

By genre, music (15.8%), knowledge and information (7.8%), comics (7.4%), and animation (6.8%) led the growth rate, driving overall industry expansion. In the music industry, rising revenue from major record labels and a recovering concert market were key drivers of growth. The comics industry saw growth due to increasing demand for webtoons and improved performance by leading companies. The animation industry also experienced growth as a result of successful theatrical releases and better financial results. The film industry benefited from strong performances of highly anticipated titles. In contrast, some sectors such as advertising (−1.7%), broadcasting (−1.3%), and publishing (−1.2%) saw slight declines due to economic slowdowns and fluctuations in the advertising market.

Growth in exports was equally notable. The annual export value of South Korea’s content industry in 2025 rose by 5.9% to 14.9582 billion dollars compared to the previous year. Music (32.4%), film (19.9%), and character-related industries led the increase in exports. The music industry achieved high growth rates thanks to expanded overseas concerts and increased global activities by K-pop artists. The film industry benefited from strong performances of highly anticipated movies, while the character industry saw growth due to rising demand for Korean characters abroad. On the other hand, content solutions (−10.3%), animation (−7.6%), and publishing (−3.1%) experienced declining exports due to slowdowns in certain overseas markets.

The widespread adoption of generative artificial intelligence was also significant. In the fourth quarter of 2025, 32.1% of content businesses were using generative AI, meaning roughly one out of three companies utilized it. Among the 810 companies that adopted it, 66.2% implemented it only in certain departments, while 33.8% adopted it company-wide. By genre, the adoption rate was highest in gaming (70.0%), followed by animation (51.6%), advertising (40.9%), knowledge and information (33.7%), and broadcasting and video (31.9%). The most common area of application was content production (62.7%), followed by business planning (43.7%) and content creation (32.8%). Even among companies that had not yet adopted generative AI, 16.6% said they intended to do so in the future.