The Korean Wave has moved beyond a pop-culture fad, emerging as a strategic asset that boosts South Korea’s national brand and industrial competitiveness.
According to the “2025 Global Hallyu Trend Analysis Report Based on Foreign Media and Social Data,” released on the 25th by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Culture Information Service Agency, K-food gained worldwide traction last year, riding the popularity of K-content such as the Netflix animated film “K-pop Demon Hunters,” known in Korean as “K-pop Demon Hunters (KDH).”
The report reflects 5,608 stories from about 460 major overseas outlets, along with about 1.49 million Hallyu-related items collected from platforms including YouTube and X. The data covered October 2024 through September 2025.
By sector, the global rise of “K-food” stood out. Along with core terms tied to popular and traditional dishes — including kimchi, soju, ramen and bibimbap — “chef” and “Squid Game” newly emerged as closely linked keywords. The report attributed that shift to Korean food being naturally featured on OTT platforms, including the cooking variety show “Culinary Class Wars” and the drama “Squid Game,” prompting renewed global attention.
The report said “K-pop Demon Hunters,” which became a global hit, blended traditional cultural motifs such as grim reapers and dokkaebi with Korean elements including gimbap and ramen, helping the content’s ripple effects spread across industries, including traditional culture and K-food. It cited positive impacts extending into tourism and consumption, including an increase in foreign visitors to the National Museum of Korea and a surge in reservations for K-culture experience products.
The drama “When Life Gives You Tangerines,” set on Jeju Island, also boosted demand for Jeju tourism after its Netflix release, the report said. It added that voluntary social media sharing — including the “My Own Gwansik Challenge” — was recognized as a case of local content going global. “Squid Game,” meanwhile, continued to generate industrial spillovers through global brand collaborations, wins at major U.S. awards shows and expanded OTT investment.
After author Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the share of “K-literature” coverage rose by more than 30 percentage points from the previous quarter, the report said. “The Vegetarian” and “Human Acts” drew particular attention. Foreign media highlighted the symbolism of her being the first Asian woman to win the prize and said Korean literature had opened a new horizon in world literary history.
In 2025, foreign media coverage related to Hallyu was highest in Asia (44%), followed by Europe (20.8%) and North America (16.9%), the report said. In most regions — including Asia, Europe, North America and Central and South America — K-pop accounted for the largest share. In Africa, “K-literature” ranked highest, while in Oceania, “K-film” led.
By country, the United States, India, Argentina and Vietnam produced the most coverage. Japan showed a relatively higher share of “K-literature,” Vietnam of “K-drama,” and Brazil of “K-film.”
The culture ministry said the report is significant because it integrates foreign news articles and social media data to provide a comprehensive big-data analysis — including coverage volume by continent, country and content type, shifts in keywords, sentiment analysis and network maps — and “quantitatively demonstrates the structure of Hallyu’s spread.”
The report is available on the Culture Big Data Platform.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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