S.Korea’s web novel sector hits $750 mn in value: Study

South Korea's rising web novel industry, which has seen popular works like "Reborn Rich" and "The Red Sleeve" made into TV series, has exceeded 1 trillion won ($749.2 million) in value.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea on Thursday released a survey on the sector's performance last year saying the industry's scale reached 1,039 billion won in 2021, up 62% from 640 billion won in 2020, with an estimated 5.87 million users.

Among 599 respondents who viewed web novels at least once a month, 34.5% said they read such content almost daily over the past year. The average time spent on the materials per day was 30-60 minutes, with 35.6% of respondents reading such novels on weekdays and 28.6% on weekends.

In addition, 77.8% of readers said they had experience paying for such content, with an average payment per session of 14,476 won.

The average annual income of a creator was 34.8 million won, and web novel series accounted for 46.1% of such earnings. By average fee per work, 27.8% of creators earned between 100,000 and 1 million won; 19.8% 1 million to 3 million won; and 14.8% under 100,000 won.

Just 2.8% earned a range of 50 million to 100 million won and 1.2% over 100 million won.

Write to Eun-Seo Koo at koo@hankyung.com