Advertising market grows to record size, dominated by top 10 firms

SEOUL, April 17 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's advertising market reached 14.7 trillion won (US$12.95 billion) last year, with more than 70 percent of it dominated by the top three firms, an industry study showed Monday.

Last year's market size is 8.1 percentage points bigger than the previous year's 13.7 trillion won, according to the Korea Federation of Advertising Associations (KFAA). Not only were there growing demands by local advertisers, but profits at overseas branches in emerging markets like India and Southeast Asian countries also expanded, it said.

The wealth from such growth, however, went heavily to the top-ranked firms in the industry. The top 10 firms accounted for 87.7 percent of the market last year, or 12.97 trillion won, up 3.9 percentage points in monetary terms from 12.23 trillion won the year before.

More narrowly, the top three took 72.1 percent, up from 71.5 percent in the former year.

Cheil Worldwide's share was the biggest with 5.33 trillion won, followed by Innocean Worldwide at 3.91 trillion won. HS Ad came in at No. 3 with 1.35 trillion won.

The domination by the industry's top 10 had climbed from 68.4 percent in 2007 to 85 percent in 2014. It appeared to wane at 83.8 percent in 2015 before rising to record high the following year.

Profits ran in tandem with the company size. CJ Worldwide had 1,223 employees, Innocean 694, and HS Ad 520.

Industry tally showed that 60 percent of the profits for the top 10 firms came from abroad. Last year, the amount stood at 7.65 trillion won, up approximately 8 percentage points from 7.85 trillion won the year before.

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