Korean music market : 2000 to 2007

Korean music market has gone through as big turbulence as global or even more. Here is some numbers telling how offline CD sales has been dramatically slashed and this physical sales decline has not been offset by digital sales increase.

As for CD sales, it has marked all time high in 2000 with $450 Mil. like below. But afterwards it continued to decrease and finally last year reached the level of one-fifth of its peak. On the other hand, digital sales including online and mobile music grows by 26% CAGR, but still fail to compensate for drop in CD sales.


* Estimated 2007
(Related article written in Korean)

The thing is, unfortunately this trend would continue in 2007 and the market seems to be at a standstill. It is said that music is more popular than ever with fast penetration of music devices like music phone or mp3 player, but the industry is suffering due to piracy like illegal download and file-sharing.