Netflix said on Thursday it would spend $500 million for original content from South Korea in 2021.
Over the past five years, the company has invested $700 million to produce South Korean content, such as the popular TV shows Kingdom and Sweet Home, Netflix vice president of contents for Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand Minyoung Kim said at an online press event.
Kim added that the company will continue to invest in South Korean storytellers regardless of genre or format going forward.
Also speaking at the event, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said the streaming giant has produced around 200 pieces of content from Asia over the past four years, with 80 of them coming from South Korea.
Sweet Home was viewed by 22 million households within 28 days after launch, the CEO said.
The streaming giant currently has 3.8 million paid subscribers in South Korea, Kim said. Back in December, Netflix announced it has established a production firm in South Korea to foster and finance local content. The subsidiary has rented two studios.
According to market research firm Nielsen Korea, Netflix saw its number of unique visitors in South Korea increase by 64.2% from January to November in 2020. Nielsen attributed the uptick to more people staying at home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
