Nina Jobst
Research expert covering South Korea
Streaming in South Korea - statistics & facts
Services for streaming audio and video contents are gaining popularity all around the world. Given that South Korea has one of the fastest internet connections in the world, as well as a high internet penetration rate, this trend is prevalent in South Korea as well. A survey found, that music streaming has become very frequent in the life of most South Koreans.
What kind of content is streamed in South Korea?
Movie and TV streaming services, as well and music streaming services were the content providers South Koreans paid money for regularly. Nevertheless, when it came to video and music streaming in general, YouTube as a free platform was enjoying widespread popularity in South Korea. Most South Koreans had used YouTube before but only a small portion of users had used fee-based channel subscriptions. According to Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, a significant portion of South Koreans used YouTube as a news source. YouTube is often cited as the major streaming platform for both music and video content.On what platform do South Koreans stream music?
According to a survey among audio content users, music was the most preferred form of audio content online. The most popular music streaming service apart from Youtube was Melon. Since 2009, Melon was part of Kakao M, a South Korean entertainment company previously known as LOEN Entertainment.Which is the platform preferred by South Koreans to stream videos?
While South Korean video streaming services were dominating the domestic market for quite a while, international streaming giants like Netflix were taking over the South Korean online video market, since they offer content that is both tailored to the South Korean audience as well as a broad range of international content. With international streaming services threatening their market position, dometic competitors started to merge to keep up. In 2019, two of the then biggest domestic OTT platform providers, Oksusu and Pooq, merged into a new service called Wavve, and at the end of 2022 Tving and KT's Seezn followed this strategy, making Tving the largest South Korean streaming platform.What does the future hold for streaming in South Korea?
With the rise of 5G coverage in South Korea, streaming services have become an important selling point to win over customers. Carriers in South Korea are still working on improving both their network and as well as services they can offer to attract new customers and maintain existing ones. One segment to look out for in the future are 5G game streaming services, such as Ubitus or xCloud, although the struggles of Google Stadia might indicate that this particular service needs more time to mature.
