Kwak Yeon-soo is a digital editor at The Korea Times creating, editing and curating digital content for the newspaper’s website, mobile app and social media. She previously covered a diverse array of cultural, political and business topics.
Young Asian women most loyal 'hallyu' consumers: survey
From left, posters for the drama series “Itaewon Class,” “Start-Up,” “Kingdom” and “Crash Landing On You” / Korea Times file
By Kwak Yeon-soo
By Kwak Yeon-soo
Young Asian women were the main consumers of Korean wave products in 2020, according to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in collaboration with the Korean Foundation for International Culture Exchange, Thursday.
The annual report showed that Asian women in their 20s and 30s were the “biggest spenders” on Korean cultural products last year.
“The main hallyu consumers were Asian women between the ages of 29 and 31, and the results showed that women spent more than men on dramas, variety shows, films, books, beauty products and food. Men only outnumbered women in games,” the ministry said in a statement.
The report was compiled based on a survey of 8,500 hallyu (Korean wave) consumers across 18 countries, including China, Japan, the U.S., Australia, the U.A.E. and Brazil. It was conducted last year in the form of an online survey between September and November.
Demand for Korean variety shows, dramas and games increased the most in 2020 from the previous year, as more people relied on digital content during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the main platforms for viewing Korean video content were online or mobile.
Dramas were the most preferred offerings, with 29.7 percent of the respondents saying they watched K-dramas. Beauty products came next at 27.5 percent, followed by variety shows at 26.9 percent and fashion-related products at 24.8 percent.
Hit drama “Crash Landing on You,” K-pop boy band BTS and the Oscar-winning film “Parasite” were among Korea's most popular cultural offerings last year.
In the category for dramas, some 9.5 percent of respondents picked the romance series “Crash Landing on You” as their favorite Korean drama, followed by “It's Okay to Not Be Okay” at 4.1 percent. “The World of the Married” and “Itaewon Class” tied for third place, at 2.8 percent.
As for singers, BTS topped the survey with 22 percent, followed by BLACKPINK at 13.5 percent and PSY at 2.9 percent.
For Korean films, director Bong Joon-ho's 2019 black comedy thriller “Parasite” ranked No. 1 with 18.4 percent, followed by Yeon Sang-ho's 2016 zombie blockbuster “Train to Busan” at 10.2 percent and “Peninsula” (2020) at 3.5 percent.
For the fourth consecutive year, hallyu fans responded that K-pop is the first thing that comes to their minds when thinking of Korea. K-pop or singers constituted the top result on all continents except for Africa ― the IT industry ranked first in South Africa.
Some 16.8 percent of respondents picked K-pop or singers as their favorite thing about Korea, followed by Korean food at 12 percent and the IT industry at 6.9 percent.
In particular, Korean food ranked No.1 in countries that have relatively high purchasing power, like China, Japan, the U.S. and Russia.
However, the use of the Korean language was picked as a stumbling block to the Korean culture industry's worldwide expansion.
“The fact that the popularity of hallyu seems to have continued unabated across the world despite the yearlong COVID-19 restrictions is encouraging. The government will budget more for providing subtitles, translations and voice-overs in order to reduce language barriers,” one ministry official said.
“We will also increase the number of Sejong Institutes, dispatch more Korean-language instructors around the world and offer online courses in Korean.”