□ According to the 2019 Overseas Hallyu Survey, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST, minister Do Jong-hwan) and implemented in late 2018 by the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE, president Kim Yong-rak), consumption of Hallyu content is increasing due to the expansion of distribution platforms, as well as a political and diplomatic détente resulting in a decrease in anti-Korean sentiment.

2019 Overseas Hallyu Survey Summary
□ This study was conducted in cooperation with the Korean Cultural Center at various overseas locations, including India. It surveyed 7,500 people in 16 countries who have experienced Korean cultural content, analyzing their Hallyu content consumption patterns in 10 categories, including TV programs, films, and music.

□ To the question “What do you immediately associate Korea with?” “K-pop” was the most frequent answer accounting for 17.3% of all responses, followed by “Korean food” (9.9%), “IT business” (6.9%), “dramas” (6.8%), and “cosmetics” (5.6%). “North Korea/nuclear issue” moved down from second place in the previous year’s research, accounting for less than 4% of all responses.

□ Overall, favorability and consumption of Korean cultural content increased compared to the previous year. Favorability increased in all the content categories except for fashion, cosmetics, and games, with TV dramas (74.7%), food (72.7%), TV variety shows (72.2%), and films (70.9%) ranking the highest. Monthly average consumption of Korean cultural content (the percentage of Korean cultural content out of all cultural content consumed by an individual) was 55%—approximately 10 percentage points higher than the previous year—and the most consumed content were TV variety shows (61.2%), publications (60.1%), TV dramas (59.8%), and games (59.5%). Among the 16 countries surveyed, Indonesia showed the highest consumption of Korean cultural content in every content category.

□ The research showed a shift in the main channel of access to Korean cultural content from TV to online/mobile platforms. Video content such as TV programs, movies, and animation were mostly watched on OTT platforms, and the channel had 10–20% higher access rate than TV in every genre. Top OTT platforms for the consumption of Korean video content were YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video. As for music, 83.6% of all listeners used online/mobile platforms. The most frequently used channel to access Korean publications including webtoons and e-books was domestic websites/apps (67.2%), and online (58.1%) and mobile (55.3%) for games. The most used channel for fashion and cosmetics was domestic websites, followed by social media.

□ The most favored cultural content by category were: Mr. Sunshine (4.7%), Descendants of the Sun (3.7%), Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (3.4%), What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim? (2.9%), and Are You Human? (2.6%) in the TV drama category; Train to Busan (8.4%), Be with You (5.8%), Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds (4.5%), Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days (2.1%), and Burning (2.0%) in the films category; PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (18%), Ragnarok Online (15.7%), CrossFire (11%), Black Desert Online (8.8%), and MapleStory (8.6%) in the video games category; and Pucca (20.1%), Pororo (19.8%), Larva (16.9%), Tayo (11.6%), and Robocar Poli (10.5%) in terms of animation character. The most favored pop stars were BTS (10.3%), Psy (6.9%), Black Pink (3.8%), Big Bang (2.5%), and EXO (2.3%), while the most favored actors were Lee Min-ho (8.6%), Song Hye-kyo (2.4%), Gong Yoo (2.4%), Song Joong-ki (2.1%), and Lee Jong-suk (1.9%).

□ In comparison to the previous year, the rate of negative recognition of Hallyu dropped by 2.9 percentage points to 28.1%, and especially in China, the rate decreased significantly from 49.4% in 2018 to 25.6% in 2019. Major reasons for negative recognition included excessive commercialism (27.4%), uniformity/redundancy (21.8%), and provocativeness/salaciousness (14.4%). Whereas “reports of Korea’s division and North Korea’s threat on the globe” took up 17.4%—the highest percentage—of last year’s responses to “reasons for negative recognition of Hallyu,” the percentage was 6.3 in this year’s research—a significant drop. The issues most often encountered in relation to Korea were North Korea’s nuclear/missile threats (65.5%), the North Korea-United States Summit (48.8%), and the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang (42.1%), and 33.8% gave an affirmative response to the question “Do such issues affect your consumption of Korean cultural content?”

□ The research showed positive prospects for Korean cultural content. 45.6% of all subjects answered that their “interest in Korean cultural content will increase over the next year,” showing an 8-percentage point increase from the previous year. Responses that their “willingness to spend on Korean cultural content will increase over the next year” also increased by 4.3 percentage points to 42.9%. By content category, the percentage of positive responses to the question “Would you be willing to consume Korean cultural content for a fee?” were 41.1% for films, 36.3% for TV dramas, 35% for music, 34.1% for TV variety shows, 30.7% for animation, 28.4% for comics/webtoons, and 26.9% for publications/e-books. The percentage of affirmative responses to “Did your experience of Korean cultural content have a positive impact on your recognition of Korea?” was particularly high, accounting for 62.3% of all responses, and the rate of positive responses for those in their 20s and 30s was particularly striking.

□ KOFICE president Kim Yong-rak noted, “The patterns of Korean cultural content distribution and consumption have changed in cadence with the media environment, and the consumption of Korean cultural content have direct and positive impacts on the way consumers recognize Korea and Korean products. Now is the time to expand online and mobile distribution channels to facilitate the global market’s access to Korean cultural content, as well as the development of policies for translation and subtitling support to lower the language barrier.”

□ The 2019 Overseas Hallyu Survey can be downloaded from the KOFICE website (www.kofice.or.kr).