Current market focused on B2B content and HMD-centric hardware
With high utility in VR rooms, games, and shopping, the market is expected to shift towards B2C and content.

The VR industry is becoming fully active this year, but it is still in its early stages.

Concerns regarding the domestic VR market are mounting. Jeong Woo-cheol, Director of the Korea VR Association—founded in 2015 to foster a domestic industrial ecosystem and cultivate talent—emphasized market expansion through global alliances, stating, “The domestic market has its limits. It is time to go global.”

The Ministry of Science and ICT has announced plans to provide 405 billion won in support over five years and ease regulations on VR arcades and theme parks. As a result, what will happen to the domestic VR market?


Regarding the domestic market, Lee Hyuk-soo, CEO of Strategy and Execution, stated, “Content is being developed centered on games, shopping, and videos, and Samsung’s Gear VR and LG are currently developing PC-based HMDs.” This implies that services for VR arcades and theme parks have launched, and telecommunications companies are also actively developing service platforms.

Currently, the domestic VR content market is being formed by nine genres, including games, real estate, shopping, education, movies, travel, performances, sports, and social media. The B2C market, which is in its early stages, is centered on education and games and is worth approximately 3.4 billion won. In contrast, the B2B market is estimated to be approximately 43 billion won, including automobile and machinery product development, energy and construction sectors such as KEPCO and city gas, and medical and distribution sectors.

The domestic VR market is worth approximately 89 billion won, with more than half being hardware.

In 2016, the size of the domestic VR market was approximately 89 billion won, with hardware centered on B2B content (43 billion won) and HMDs (25 billion won) accounting for more than half of it. CEO Lee stated, “As government regulations such as radio wave certification, tax benefits, and the Personal Information Protection Act were eased, markets for content and devices were formed. The service distribution market is also growing.”

He went on to forecast, “Using a market size estimation model, the domestic market is expected to reach approximately 2.3 trillion won in 2021.” Anticipating that content such as games, movies, concerts, travel, and shopping will transition to VR within 2 to 5 years, he predicted that the B2C market would grow more than the B2B market, and the content market more than the device market, in the future.

In particular, it was stated that the B2C market is expected to grow to approximately 2.1 trillion won in 2021, with VR rooms, theme parks, games, and shopping accounting for the majority. The B2B market was projected to be approximately 231 billion won in 2021, with the B2B2G (business-to-business-to-government) market accounting for the largest share.

CEO Lee stated, “It will have a significant impact not only on the VR market itself but also on the infrastructure market and other industries,” adding, “If we consider the impact on other industries, the scale could expand to approximately 5.3 trillion won.” He explained that if it influences other industries such as telecommunications and smartphones, it is expected to create about 12,000 jobs in addition to economic benefits.

CEO Lee, who stated that three efforts are needed for the VR market to grow as expected, emphasized, “VR must become mainstream to see economic and job creation effects. For VR to converge with other industries like the IT industry of the past, we must become familiar with it through extensive VR education and training. In addition, government deregulation and continued support for investment in 5G communication infrastructure must also be maintained.”