20 percent of Koreans are now using Netflix

Netflix passed 10 million monthly average users in Korea in February, cementing its lead in the local over-the-top streaming market with nearly 20 percent of the population now using its service.

According to market research firm IGAWorks, Netflix ranked first in the domestic market followed by Wavve, an over-the-top streaming service run by SK Telecom and Korea’s three major broadcast channels. Its monthly average users in February totaled 4 million.

TVing run by CJ ENM came third with 2.65 million monthly average users, followed by U+ Mobile TV and Seezn, offered by mobile carriers LG U+ and KT, 2.13 and 1.68 million monthly average users each. Watcha came last with 1.39 million monthly average users.

Netflix also showed the most rapid on-year growth compared to its domestic rivals. Its February monthly average users had more than doubled from January last year, when the monthly count was merely 4.7 million. The number of daily average users also nearly doubled to 2.52 million as of Feb. 1.

Among users subscribed to domestic services, more than 40 percent also had accounts on Netflix. The overlap was highest at Watcha, where 65 percent of users also watched Netflix.

Subscribers of domestic services have been largely stagnant since January 2020. The five domestic platforms had 5.96 million monthly average users in February, excluding overlapping subscribers, a slight fall from January 2020 when they had 5.98 million users.

BY SONG KYOUNG-SON [song.kyoungson@joongang.co.kr]