The number of Netflix users in South Korea has been on a steady rise since February last year, when it came to 400,000. (image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Netflix Inc. had an estimated 2 million paid viewers in South Korea as of the end of October, more than doubling from a year earlier, data showed Tuesday.
South Korean subscribers to the U.S. video streaming platform numbered 810,000 in October 2018, according to the data from industry tracker WiseApp.
The latest figure was also up from an estimated 1.91 million users two months earlier. The number of Netflix users in South Korea has been on a steady rise since February last year, when it came to 400,000.
The data showed that 38 percent of Netflix users in the country were in their 20s, followed by 31 percent in their 30s and 18 percent in their 40s. Those aged 50 or older took up the remainder.
South Korean subscribers paid an estimated 26 billion won (US$22.3 million) for Netflix streaming services in October, or 13,000 won per-capita.
Netflix, which started as a video rental firm in 1997, offers original and licensed TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages.
To take on foreign video streaming platforms, the country’s three terrestrial broadcasters — KBS, MBC and SBS — opened a new over-the-top (OTT) platform service, named Wavve, in September.
It offers 1,000 titles, including movies and drama series, from both home and abroad, to paid subscribers.
Also, two large subscription broadcasting services — CJ ENM and JTBC — joined hands in September to set up a joint venture to provide a streaming media service next year based on the former’s subscription-based video-on-demand service, named tving.
(Yonhap)
