4th Largest in the World

Sales of South Korea’s game industry totaled 14.29 trillion won (US$12.25 billion) in 2018.

Sales of South Korea’s game industry totaled 14.29 trillion won (US$12.25 billion) in 2018, up 8.7 percent from the previous year, according to the 2019 Korean Game White Paper released on Jan. 7.

The book was published jointly by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency.


By sector, mobile game sales rose 7.2 percent on year to 6.65 trillion won (US$5.7 billion). Sales of PC games increased 10.6 percent to 5.23 trillion won (US$4.48 billion), while console games posted a 41.5 percent jump to 548.5 billion won (US$470 million).
 

Exports increased 8.2 percent on-year to 7.54 trillion won (US$6.41 billion), accounting for 67.1 percent of the country's total content exports of 11.14 trillion won (US$9.55 billion) in the same year.

China accounted for 30.8 percent of the country's game exports, followed by the United States with 15.9 percent, Taiwan and Hong Kong with 15.7 percent, Japan with 14.2 percent, Southeast Asia with 10.3 percent and Europe with 6.5 percent. Imports of games increased 16.3 percent to 336.5 billion won (US$357.8 million). The global game market is estimated at US$178.3 billion. The United States, China and Japan had a larger market than Korea.

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