Netflix's VP for content in Korea, Don Kang, says he is "very confident" about the health and the growth of the Korean content industry. The current downturn is part of a cycle, he told MPA executive director, Vivek Couto, on stage this morning in Bali as the 2025 APOS got underway. 

"I am very confident that it's a time where we need to practice discipline in terms of managing costs but I know we've done it before and we will come out stronger, with more variety of stories and a greater number of shows," Kang said. 

He added that Netflix thought "long and hard" about the appropriate size of the investment in shows it wanted to commission, and finalised budgets in consultation with production companies. 

"We try to right-size the budget and as long as we can all exercise that discipline together, I'm very confident about the future health [of the production ecosystem]," he said. 

Talking about Netflix's advertising tier in Korea, he said about half of new subscribers signed up to the advertising tier. This tracked behaviour in other parts of the world. 

"Our ad business in Korea is tracking similar to what we're seeing around the world. About 50% of all new members [in ad supported countries] are signing up to the ad tier. It gives our audiences and members the choice of how much they want to pay for Netflix, and it also creates a great opportunity for the brands to connect to the stories on Netflix," he said.

Kang took to the stage as Netflix released a new report on the how Korean content is shaping global perceptions of Korea and two days before the release of the new season of "Squid Game", which Netflix said this morning had attracted almost 600 million views (number of hours viewed divided by the number of episodes) to date across the first two seasons. 

The third-party survey of 11,500 people around the world shows that watching K-Content directly contributes to global audiences having more positive perceptions of Korea, with Netflix members 2X more likely to be interested in Korean culture.

The report covers responses from K-Content fans, compares reactions from Netflix members vs non-members, and gauges how South Koreans feel about the popularity of K-Content. 

The report says that K-Content fandom "is not a phase for global audiences, with Netflix members twice as likely (63% vs 36%) to show interest in watching K-Content in the future".

K-Content viewers show 2X interest in visiting South Korea, the report says. 

The report also finds that most Koreans acknowledge K-Content’s beneficial impact on Korea’s image and tourism, with 87% saying the international success of Korean content creates more opportunities for Korean creators and businesses.

The report says that K-Content viewers show long-term loyalty. "Most K-Content viewers in the U.S., Japan, India, France, and Brazil have been watching for 2+ years," it says.

Netflix users show active interest in various aspects of Korean culture such as travel, cuisine, music, and language, the report added. 

79% of people polled in Japan said they had been watching Korean content for more than two years. 44% said they had been watching for more than five years. 

The second highest engagement with Korean content over two years was in the U.S., where 78% of respondents had hit the two-year mark. 23% had been watching for more than five years. 

India followed with 76% having watched Korean shows for about two years, with France at 71% and Brazil at 61%. 

71% of K-content viewers said they had seen "Squid Game". 

Top Korean genres are drama (60%), romance (54%), action and comedy (at 43% each), thriller (39%), fantasy (37%) and horror (36%).