New survey highlights steady smartphone use and a quiet TV comeback
Over 80 percent of South Koreans used streaming services in 2025, with adoption among those in their 40s reaching 98 percent, according to a recent survey.
According to the Korea Media and Communications Commission’s 2025 survey on broadcasting media usage, released Tuesday, the nationwide streaming usage rate reached 81 percent this year, up from 77 percent in 2023. The survey was conducted through in-person interviews with 8,320 individuals aged 13 and older from 5,566 households across all 17 metropolitan cities and provinces.
Paid streaming service adoption also continued its upward trajectory.
The share of users paying for streaming subscriptions climbed to 65 percent, marking a 6 percentage-point increase from 59 percent a year earlier.
Much of that growth was driven by middle-aged and older viewers, demographics that were once slower to embrace streaming.
Usage among people in their 40s surged from 88 percent in 2023 to 98 percent this year. Viewership among those in their 50s rose from 81 percent to 88 percent over the same period, while usage among people in their 60s climbed from 61 percent to 70 percent.
When it came to content preferences, short-form videos led the pack, with 78 percent of users reporting regular consumption. Original streaming programs followed at 68 percent, while shows produced by paid TV broadcasters accounted for 42 percent. Notably, short-form content had increasingly translated into commerce: 5.7 percent of short-form viewers said they had purchased a product within the past month after watching such content.
At the device level, viewing habits showed slight signs of recalibration.
Smartphone usage appears to have plateaued, while TV viewership edged upward, slightly narrowing the gap between the two.
The share of respondents using smartphones at least five days a week stood at 92 percent, nearly unchanged from 92.2 percent the previous year. TV usage, meanwhile, rose to 70.9 percent, up from 69.1 percent.
Hardware ownership has largely reached saturation, though incremental growth continues in specific segments.
Overall TV ownership remained steady at 94 percent, while smartphone ownership also ticked upward, reaching 96 percent, compared with 95 percent a year earlier. The survey attributed the increase largely to older users, noting that ownership among those aged 70 and above rose by 3.3 percentage points to 76.3 percent.
Public perception of essential media in daily life showed subtle but notable shifts. The proportion of respondents who viewed smartphones as indispensable fell slightly, down 0.4 percentage point to 74.9 percent, while those citing television as essential rose by the same margin to 23 percent.
That trend became even more pronounced in disaster and emergency scenarios. The share of respondents who considered smartphones essential in such situations dropped sharply, falling 7.8 percentage points year-on-year to 68.7 percent.
By contrast, reliance on television surged, with 29.7 percent identifying TV as essential — an increase of 8.4 percentage points from the previous year.
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