- Words by Inquiro
Korean, also known as Hallyu or Korean wave, gained popularity in the Philippines over the last decade. A Twitter report in 2021 shows the Philippines claiming the third spot in countries with the most K-pop fans. Our country surpassed even South Korea, with Indonesia on the top spot followed by Japan. We came in second among countries tweeting the most about K-pop. But is it really the case? Are Kpop fans really a majority of Philippine population? Or are they over represented in social media?
In this article, using Inquiro’s proprietary database, we will try to answer these questions by the numbers.
With over 55 million data subjects as a sample, here’s what we’ve found.
Unsurprisingly, Filipinos aged 19 and below show the highest interest for Korean content at 7.7%. This is in line with the stereotype that people who watch K-drama or listen to K-pop are mostly younger generations.
Now, when we filter for only active internet users;
We see a substantial increase across the board. Again, ages 19 and below comes out with the highest Korean content consumption.
Curiously, there is a small bump for ages 80 and above. This could be attributed to sharing of mobile devices in a household – kids borrowing their grandparent’s phone.
Female dominated
Shifting our attention to gender, this is how the same plot looks like when we segment each bar between males and females:
There is no denying that women, across the board, are surfing the Hallyu wave – at least among internet users.
This adjustment reveals that women, ages 20-29 now have the highest share of active consumers of Korean content online. At 7.9% it isn’t very far from 7.7% for ages 19 and below. This is interesting to look back on we have a year’s worth of data.
Earlier we saw how ages 19 and below have the highest shares of fans. However, this just counts how many of them have watched or subscribed to Korean content online. It does not tell us how often they visit and how active they are compared to other age groups.
So let’s add another metric, engagement. How engaged they are will be measured by how many web/app hits have accumulated since the start of 2022. Web/app hits refer to unique visits to an app or website. For example, you visit VIU – a K-drama website/app, that counts as 1 hit. Higher web/app hits will give us an idea on how many of our respondents are “casuals” and how many of them are outliers (stan).
Among 2 million active Korean content consumers (KCCs) from our database, here’s what we found:
The median engagement for all data subjects is 4.6 per week. It could be that they watch Korean content for four days in some weeks and for five days in other weeks. The more likely scenario is they binge watch for several days in a row and rest for a few days.
In summary, the percentage of KCCs in each age group is correlated with their activity. The age group with the fewest KCCs (70-79) are the second most inactive consumer of Korean content while the age group with the second most KCCs (20-29) are the most active among all age groups.
While still not as active as the average, it is interesting to note that there is a small bump again for ages 80 and above.
Filipinos are very active on social media. The Philippines rank 1st in daily time spent on the internet, and 1st in daily time spent on social media.
This is reflected in Inquiro’s database as well. 100% of KCCs are active on social media. When we use the engagement metric used earlier, it shows that on average, KCCs are 2x more engaged on social media apps/websites than non-KCCs. Again, this is based on web/app hits. KCCs have had an average of 333 weekly hits, compared to only 172 weekly hits for non-KCCs between January and October 2022.
“On average, Korean content consumers are 2x more engaged on social media apps/websites than non-Korean content consumers”
Filipinos are already established as one of the most active people on the internet. It is a valid statement then, to argue that Filipino KCCs are one of the most active fandoms on the planet. This is supported by the twitter report mentioned earlier.
Another interesting insight emerges when we contextualize the percentage of KCCs from the respondents (4.2%). 4.2% is far lower than expected. It seems like it should be higher, based on what we see on social media. This then raises the question:
“Does the overwhelming activity among KCCs on social media over-bloat their actual population?”
This is where the term ‘mijority’ comes in. I coined the term mijority to describe a certain minority group that has a perceived majority status on a specific public sphere through their high activity and engagement in social media. A great example would be college graduates on the internet. An SWS report in 2019 reveals that 79% of college graduates are on the internet, whereas there’s only around 20% of Filipinos who have a college degree or higher according to the Labor Force Survey and Philippines Statistics Authority. In short, educated Filipinos are over represented in social media as they are very active on the internet – despite being a minority on the ground.
Access to the internet and social media have provided vast the majority of Filipinos an opportunity to find like minded individuals with whom to form communities that fosters strong social bond. This lead to a fragmented public spheres in which different groups can dominated their platforms. Sometimes, what’s happening on social media does not reflect what’s on the ground. A minority could appear to be the majority online.
This blog is just a beginning in understanding this trend in social media. We’ll provide more case studies and more interesting topics in the future.
Interested to uncover new insights about the market? Get in touch with us today and let’s see what we can discover together. Email us at info@inquiro.ph.
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