Job seekers consult with officials from a local sports agency at the 2018 Sports Industry Job Fair in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s sports market grew in 2017, but its profitability went down, a report by the sports ministry showed Wednesday.
The number of companies in the industry was reported at 101,207 in 2017, up 6.3 percent from the previous year, according to the report released by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The market size was evaluated at 74.7 trillion won (US$66.8 billion), an increase of 2.9 percent year-on-year, while the number of workers in the field of sports rose 6.3 percent on-year to 424,000, the annual report showed.
By business type, those in sports service businesses saw the biggest growth in sales with an on-year increase of 5.9 percent. However, businesses in sports facilities and merchandise only saw on-year growth of 2 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively.
Although the country’s sports industry got larger, the report showed its profitability and quality got weaker.
The report said that local businesses’ operating profit margin in 2017 was 8.2 percent, 0.4 percentage points lower than that of 2016.
Only 6.2 percent of companies in the industry had annual sales of 1 billion or more in 2017, which was down from 7.2 percent in 2016.
According to the report, 95.9 percent of companies in the sports industry in 2017 employed 10 people or fewer, which was up from 95.5 percent in the previous year.
South Korea last month announced its long-term development plan for the sports industry that aims to expand the market size to 95 trillion won by 2023. It also aims to have at least 7,000 companies in the sports industry record annual sales of 1 billion won or more.
(Yonhap)
