According to the “2025 Content Usage Behavior Survey” released by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency, 9 out of 10 people in Korea use online video services (OTT) and subscribe to an average of 2.1 services. The survey found that the overall OTT usage rate is 89.1%, with 54.2% subscribing to paid online video services.
The survey, the first standalone national approved statistics by the Korea Creative Content Agency, was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 6,554 people aged 10 and older across the country from July over approximately three months. It comprehensively analyzed user behavior in five areas: OTT and new media video content, comics/webtoons, animation, music, and characters.
The usage rate by platform was as follows: YouTube (85.4%), Netflix (47.6%), Coupang Play (18.9%), and TVing (13.1%). The devices used were smartphones (91.7%), TV sets (31.5%), and PCs (10.6%), with average viewing times recorded as 101 minutes on weekdays and 128 minutes on weekends.
Regarding subscription services, a notable 34.8% of users selected ad-supported pricing plans, with 87.3% expressing their intent to continue using these plans. Monthly expenditure for paid services averaged at 10,909 KRW, with users willing to pay up to 14,076 KRW, though 7,939 KRW was deemed appropriate for a single service subscription. This suggests that users aim to reduce subscription costs through partnerships or discounts, with “value for money” OTT usage at 64.7%.
The survey also observed a 20.6% increase in YouTube Premium usage, up 6 percentage points from the previous year, influenced by YouTube’s positioning as an “all-in-one platform” offering videos, music streaming (YouTube Music), and short-form content (YouTube Shorts).
Short-form content usage stood at 58.6%, with users citing reasons such as its brevity (76.0%), the desire to watch only entertaining parts (51.4%), and recommendation algorithms (47.0%). YouTube Shorts led platform usage (93.4%), followed by Instagram Reels (30.9%) and TikTok (21.1%). Preferred content types included entertainment edits (62.1%) and drama edits (38.1%), indicating a clear trend of consuming reshaped existing content.
Among short-form users, 33.3% had clicked on embedded shopping links, and 31.4% of these led to actual purchases, highlighting short-form’s role as a gateway to product purchases. Outside of OTT, usage by content category was music (81.9%), character content (38.7%), animation (23.4%), and comics/webtoons (19.9%).
Yu Hyun-seok, Acting Director of the Korea Creative Content Agency, emphasized the development of national statistics to comprehensively understand user behavior amid the blurring lines between content fields due to the spread of OTT and short-form content. He highlighted the ongoing enhancement of data production to aid policy-making and analyze structural changes in the content industry.