With Social Distancing Eased... OTT Consumption Drops, Culture and Arts Consumption Rises

Last Month, Sales in Food Service and Convenience Store Sectors Near Baseball Stadium Also Recovered to Pre-COVID-19 Levels

[Asia Economy Reporter Yu Je-hoon] As COVID-19 social distancing measures have been eased and lifted, sales of online video services (OTT) have continued to decline, while sales related to cultural and artistic fields such as movies and performances have shown a clear upward trend.

BC Card announced on the 28th that this was revealed after analyzing monthly May sales data from 2019 to 2022 for OTT and cultural consumption-related merchant transactions.

First, in May 2020, immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic began, sales in cultural consumption-related sectors decreased by 75.9% compared to the same month the previous year, and the number of transactions also dropped by 77.9%. On the other hand, due to the implementation of gathering bans and social distancing, sales and transaction counts in the OTT sector increased by 128.6% and 114.9%, respectively.

However, in May of last year, as the prolonged pandemic allowed for a variety of indoor and outdoor activities that multiple people could enjoy together, a somewhat different pattern emerged. Sales and transaction counts in the cultural consumption sector increased by 62.4% and 73.4%, respectively. The increase in sales and transaction counts in the OTT sector was relatively smaller, at 34.6% and 28.2%, respectively.

Especially this year, this trend has become even more pronounced. Sales and transaction counts related to cultural consumption increased by 114.4% and 102.5%, respectively, showing a clear recovery. OTT sector sales increased by 9.5%, but the number of transactions decreased by 2.8%. BC Card’s CB Business Team analyzed that this was due to a decrease in OTT users caused by increased outdoor activities, along with a rise in service fees.

Meanwhile, sales analysis was also conducted on professional baseball games held outdoors with large audiences. Based on the addresses of 10 baseball stadiums nationwide, sales data from all food service and convenience store sectors located within 1.5 km were analyzed. Sales in May of last year decreased by about 18% compared to the same month the previous year due to attendance restrictions (10-30% of total seats). However, with the complete lifting of social distancing and no attendance restrictions in May of this year, sales and transaction counts recovered to levels seen three years before COVID-19.

Byun Hyung-gyun, Head of BC Card AI Big Data Division (Executive Director), said, "We plan to derive useful insights by conducting detailed analyses of merchant payment data, focusing on internal and external factors that sensitively affect individual business owners, such as social distancing and the return to normal life." He added, "We will continue to actively support individual business owners in receiving financial services under favorable conditions by providing financial institutions with business credit and individual business owner credit evaluation data based on merchant data analysis insights."