Exports of Korea's content industry exceed $5 billion in 2014

The exports of South Korea's content industry exceeded US$5 billion in 2014 due mainly to its continued growth boosted by the global boom of Korean pop culture products, the government said Tuesday.

The culture ministry and the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) said the industry's total exports in 2014 were a 7.1 percent increase from the previous year, with the computer game industry accounting the most of the total.

According to a statistical survey by the two organizations, the increase in exports was also led by music and characters, although parts of the content industry such as publications, films and advertisements showed a moderate decline.

The content industry is an umbrella term encompassing publishers, broadcasters, advertisers and firms producing music, computer games, animations, movies, musicals and other creative content.

Exports of the mobile game industry accounted for half of the total exports with $2,973 million, nearly doubling over the past five years since its exports hit the $1.6 billion level in 2010.

The next came with the character industry with $489 million, followed by knowledge information with $479 million, broadcasting with $336 million and music with $335 million.

The ministry and KOCCA said the content industry's exports had maintained an average of 13.4 percent growth for five years since 2010, boosted by the spread of hallyu, or Korean pop culture.

In contrast, imports in the content industry decreased 10.8 percent to $1.29 billion in 2014, making the country's trade balance a surplus of $3.97 billion.

Overall, the total sales of Korea's content industry, including exports, marked 94,947 billion won ($78,977 million), a 4.1 percent increase from 2013.

Of the revenue, the publishing industry accounted for the most at 20,000 billion won, followed by broadcasting with 15,774 billion won, advertisements with 13,737 billion won, knowledge information with 11,343 billion won and games with 9,970 billion won.

Meanwhile, the number of people working for the domestic content industry stood at 616,000 in 105,442 business entities.

The number of people working on publications, animations, mobile games, movies, broadcasting and advertisements decreased, but the people working on content solutions and knowledge information increased, the ministry said. (Yonhap)