Last Month's Theater Attendance Hits Lowest Since 2013... Impact of COVID-19

On the 3rd, as concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus infection grow, a movie theater in Gangnam-gu, Seoul is less crowded than usual. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jong-gil] Due to the impact of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the number of movie theater audiences last month recorded the lowest since 2013.

According to the January Korean film industry report released by the Korean Film Council on the 20th, the total audience last month was 16.84 million. This is a 7.1% (1.28 million) decrease compared to January of last year. It is the lowest number of audiences for January since 2013. Box office revenue also dropped by 4.9% (7.5 billion KRW) compared to January last year, totaling 143.7 billion KRW.

The decline is due to the spread of COVID-19. Even the Lunar New Year holiday audience decreased, making it impossible to avoid the downward trend. During the three days of this year’s Lunar New Year holiday (January 24?26), 3.72 million people visited theaters. This is a 31.3% (1.16 million) decrease compared to the Lunar New Year holiday last year (February 4?6, 2019), which had 4.88 million visitors. It is the lowest number of Lunar New Year holiday audiences in the past five years.

Weekend audiences also sharply declined due to the spread of COVID-19. From January 31 to February 2, the audience was 1.11 million, and from February 7 to 9, it was 1.04 million. This is even lower than the weekend audience during the MERS outbreak in 2015 (June 5?7, 2015), which was 1.55 million.