A report has been released stating that the foreign sales of K-pop surpassed 1 trillion won for the first time last year. According to a research paper titled ‘2024 KCTI Data Focus Vol. 1 – Trends in K-pop Foreign Sales Analyzed with Data’ published on the website of the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute on the 24th, the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute revealed this information. There has been significant interest in this report as there has been a lack of comprehensive reports on K-pop’s foreign sales to date.
According to the report, the estimated foreign sales of K-pop in 2023 amounted to 1 trillion 237.7 billion won. By category, overseas performances accounted for 47.5% at 588.5 billion won, album sales for 31.4% at 388.9 billion won, and overseas streaming services for 21.0% at 260.3 billion won. This marks a 34.3% increase compared to the 921.8 billion won in 2022. The export value of album products increased to 45.2 billion won (13.2%), estimated overseas streaming service revenue was 50.5 billion won (24.1%), and estimated overseas performance revenue was 220.2 billion won (59.8%).
In the case of album product exports, the value has grown dramatically to 7.6 times that of the export value in 2017 (51.3 billion won). The revenue from overseas streaming services also increased to 3.4 times that of 2017. The global music market has been recording continued growth for nine years, which is expected to have a positive impact on K-pop’s overseas expansion. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the global music industry revenue reached 28.6 billion dollars (approximately 40 trillion won) in 2023, marking a 10.2% increase from the previous year.
The report’s author, Oh Sijin (43), stated, “Since 2018, the foreign sales of K-pop have been growing faster than those of recently prominent items such as secondary batteries, agricultural products, and cosmetics.” He further predicted, “Considering the diversification of the K-pop overseas market, the activities of new rookie singers and groups debuting this year, and ongoing efforts for overseas expansion, K-pop’s foreign sales are expected to continue to increase this year.” He also pointed out the negative aspects of K-pop, such as issues related to self-replication and content homogenization, marketing strategies focused on sales (such as enclosing photo cards and providing opportunities for fan signing events immediately after purchasing albums), emphasizing the need for the development of new business models and long-term marketing strategies for K-pop to sustain its current popularity in overseas markets.
While various data on overseas album sales and chart rankings have been presented in the past, they have been limited to fragmented information, making it difficult to comprehensively analyze K-pop’s achievements in foreign markets. This report is significant in that it presents actual achievements of Korean artists in the overseas music market based on data. Some statistics in the report are estimated due to the lack of official statistics. Oh emphasized that for sectors where clear statistics are available, data was collected from the Korea Customs Service’s import/export clearance data, while for sectors with unclear statistics such as foreign performance revenue, data was retroactively calculated using the Financial Supervisory Service’s Disclosure system (DART) data and data from the Korea Music Copyright Association, major entertainment agencies’ business and audit reports, as well as information from investor relations (IR) presentations.