April 27, 2024

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Korea’s sports market grew in 2017, but its profitability went down, a report by the Sports Ministry showed on Feb. 27.

The number of companies in the industry was reported at 101,207 in 2017, up 6.3 percent from the previous year, according to the report released by the ministry. The market size was evaluated at 74.7 trillion won (US$66.8 billion), an increase of 2.9 percent year-on-year, while the number of workers in the field of sports rose 6.3 percent on-year to 424,000, the annual report showed. 

By business type, those in sports service businesses saw the biggest growth in sales with an on-year increase of 5.9 percent.

However, businesses in sports facilities and merchandise only saw on-year growth of 2 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively.

Although the country’s sports industry got larger, the report showed its profitability and quality got weaker.

The report said that local businesses’ operating profit margin in 2017 was 8.2 percent, 0.4 percentage points lower than that of 2016.

Only 6.2 percent of companies in the industry had annual sales of 1 billion or more in 2017, which was down from 7.2 percent in 2016.

By Ram Garikipati and newswires (ram@heraldcorp.com)