Top 10% of South Korea’s creator firms account for 76% of reported revenue
New tax figures show revenue concentrated among 207 one-person media companies, even as the number of high-revenue firms has grown sharply since 2021.
South Korea’s National Tax Service data reported on Tuesday, 20 October, show that 207 one-person media companies accounted for 75.7% of the sector’s revenue reported in 2025 corporate tax filings. The concentration has prompted a lawmaker to call for closer tracking of income from overseas platforms as the number of high-revenue firms grows.
The data, submitted to Democratic Party lawmaker Jung Tae-ho, cover 2,024 companies with combined reported revenue of 1.11 trillion won. The 207 companies reporting at least 1 billion won each represented 10.2% of those firms but earned a combined 842.7 billion won. The other 1,817 companies reported 270.7 billion won between them.
How creator company revenue has shifted since 2021
The number of companies reporting at least 1 billion won in annual revenue rose from 22 in 2021 to 207 in 2025, according to both The Korea Herald and Seoul Economic Daily. Their combined reported revenue rose from 63.6 billion won to 842.7 billion won over the same period, a 13.3-fold increase. Seoul Economic Daily reported that the group’s share of corporate revenue climbed from 60% to about 76%.
The figures concern companies filing corporate tax returns, rather than the earnings of individual creators. Seoul Economic Daily separately reported that the number of active individual operators rose from 9,633 in 2021 to 36,604 in 2025, while active corporations increased from 1,167 to 3,182. Business income reported by individuals roughly doubled from 796.7 billion won in 2021 to 1.62 trillion won in 2024, the newspaper said. Those figures describe growth in the wider sector, without showing how income is distributed among individual operators.
Jung Tae-ho calls for better income tracking
Jung said revenue models and business structures were diversifying as the one-person media industry grew, according to The Korea Herald. He called for more sophisticated tax information and income monitoring, particularly for highly profitable companies. Seoul Economic Daily reported that he also urged more stable information sharing with overseas platforms.
The National Tax Service does not receive income data directly from overseas platforms such as YouTube, The Korea Herald reported. Instead, it tracks foreign-currency receipts associated with YouTube advertising, Super Chat payments and channel memberships, then compares them with tax filings to identify possible underreporting. That gap in direct access is central to Jung’s concern about whether tax authorities can keep pace with the sector’s growth.
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Sources and context
- Top creator firms take 76% of Korea’s one-person media revenueThe Korea Herald
- Top 10% of Korea's Creator Firms Take 76% of RevenueSeoul Economic Daily (original reporting by Nam Yoon-jung; English page says AI-translated from Korean)
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.