Lining Up to Snap a Shot, Everyone Jumped In... Now There Are More Shops Than Customers

Fueled by 20s and 30s, sales grow 2.4 times in four years
Store boom overheats competition... claw machine arcades rebound

Although the instant photo booth market, including brands like Insaengnekeot, has grown rapidly, the number of business closures has also risen quickly. This is analyzed as the result of intensified competition following a sharp increase in the number of stores amid a start-up boom.

The photo is unrelated to any specific statements in the article. Getty Image Bank

Citing data submitted by the National Tax Service to the office of Assemblyman Cha Kyugeun of the National Assembly Strategy and Finance Committee from the Cho Kuk Innovation Party, Yonhap News reported on the 17th that the tax base (sales) for the “instant photo booth operation business” in 2024 totaled 319.6 billion won.

This figure is 2.4 times larger in four years compared with 134.4 billion won in 2020. Annual sales showed a steady increase, recording 133.7 billion won in 2021, 247.1 billion won in 2022, and 290.6 billion won in 2023.

The brand that led the instant photo studio trend, Insaengnekeot. Insaengnekeot

In particular, instant photo booths continued to gain popularity among younger people, driven by the strong desire for self-expression among Millennials & Gen Z and the influence of social networking services (SNS). According to an analysis conducted in 2023 by Finda, a loan-focused big-data fintech company, using nationwide photo studio data from the commercial district analysis platform “Openup,” people in their 20s and 30s accounted for an average of over 90% of total photo studio payments in major commercial districts in Seoul (Myeong-dong, Gangnam Station, Hongik University Station).

According to Finda, by region, the Seoul metropolitan area accounted for 68.2% of nationwide photo studio sales in 2023, about 4.8 times higher than the five major metropolitan cities (14.3%). Gangnam-gu in Seoul ranked first with 6.6 billion won in sales, followed by Mapo-gu and Songpa-gu with 1.9 billion won each. In Gyeonggi Province, Giheung-gu in Yongin-si recorded the highest sales at 830 million won. This is interpreted as being influenced by the concentration of young people in the greater Seoul area.

On the other hand, closures have also surged in parallel with the rapid growth. According to National Tax Service data, the number of business closures in 2024 reached 611, nearly 3.5 times the 176 cases in 2020. By year, closures clearly trended upward, with 195 in 2021, 296 in 2022, and 514 in 2023.

Meanwhile, claw machine arcades, which had stagnated for some time, showed a rebound. Sales in this sector rose from 46 billion won in 2020 to 58.4 billion won in 2023, then jumped to 124.1 billion won in 2024. The number of closures also fell to a more stable level, dropping from 979 in 2020 to 506 in 2024, about half as many.