South Korea's digital industry revenue reached 1,378 trillion won in 2024, accounting for over 15% of total industrial revenue. The growth was driven by increased investment in artificial intelligence (AI) and a rise in information and communication technology (ICT) exports, with companies' digital maturity surpassing 75%. The rapid adoption of AI in business operations and decision-making is marking a significant shift in the industry.
On July 8, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI) announced the findings of the '2025 Digital Industry Survey,' which reported a 9.3% increase in digital industry revenue compared to the previous year. This revenue represents 15.2% of total industrial sales, exceeding half of the manufacturing sector's total revenue.
The survey was conducted from September to December of the previous year, covering 10,323 businesses nationwide.
The digital maturity level, which indicates the extent of organizations' use of digital technologies, was reported at 75.4%, an increase of 10.8 percentage points from the previous year. The stages of digitalization and digital transformation were recorded at 67.7% and 7.7%, respectively.
By sector, revenue from digital-based industries grew by 15.6% to 615.8 trillion won, driven by global AI investment and increased ICT exports, particularly in semiconductors.
Revenue from digital platform services rose by 15.2% to 152.4 trillion won, with e-commerce platform services (29.0%), portal services (23.3%), and video, audio, and information content services (22.4%) leading the growth. The revenue structure was primarily composed of commissions (42.6%), direct sales (36.8%), advertising (9.8%), and subscription fees (9.1%).
Revenue from industries utilizing digital intermediary platforms increased by 14.3% to 214.1 trillion won. Among these businesses, 91.9% used two or more platforms simultaneously, and 46.4% operated on four or more platforms. However, 60.2% cited increased costs associated with using multiple platforms as a significant challenge. In the accommodation and food service sectors, the adoption of kiosk ordering (28.9%) and payment systems (26.2%) expanded, while robot serving and customer service remained minimal at 0.4%, indicating that on-site automation is still in its early stages.
Conversely, revenue from digital-related industries decreased by 3.1% to 396.1 trillion won, influenced by the expansion of sales channels through digital retail businesses centered on their own online shopping malls.
The adoption of digital technologies by companies is increasingly centered around AI. Over the past three years, the most commonly developed or adopted technologies were cloud computing (52.0%), artificial intelligence (43.5%), and big data (29.1%). The proportion of companies using AI for decision-making and sales activities rose significantly to 24.9%, up from 15.5% the previous year, indicating a rapid spread of AI transformation across the industry.
Lee Do-kyu, Director of the Information and Communication Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “The continuous increase of over 100 trillion won in digital industry revenue each year demonstrates that digital transformation is actively spreading across our industries. The government will systematically promote related policy support to ensure that no member of our society is left behind in this change.”
In 2023, the digital industry revenue was 1,261 trillion won, accounting for 14.5% of total industrial revenue (8,696 trillion won), reflecting a 10.5% increase from the previous year (1,141 trillion won).
* This article has been translated by AI.
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