COVID-19 Increases Indoor Activities, Boosting Character Usage
Character Consumer Age Range Widened, Adult Character Consumption Burden Lowered
2021 LEGO Korea Revenue: 182.8 Billion Won...Operating Profit Up 2.6%
Excerpted from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's "2022 Character Industry White Paper" (published June 23, 2022). Survey results on COVID-19's impact on character product use: "has impact" 45.3%, "average" 32.9%, "no impact" 21.8%. Mobile character product usage: "increased" 46.3%, "similar" 39.3%, "decreased" 14.3% — confirming growth in online/mobile character product usage. Character specialty store visits: "increased" 32.4%, "similar" 31.4%, "decreased" 36.2%.
COVID-19 impact on character use patterns: weekly character use rate (1+ times/week) grew from 38.7% (2019, pre-COVID) → 40.0% (2020) → 43.5% (2021); mobile character product weekly use rose from 58.2% (2019) → 61.0% (2020) → 64.1% (2021). Online shopping malls ranked #1 for character product purchase channel; digital character products (emoticons) saw major growth — Kakao reported emoticons with cumulative revenue over 100 million won increased by 392, over 1 billion won by 37, reaching 700 billion won total by 2021. Character consumer age range widened and adult character consumption stigma lowered, expanding the licensed product market. COVID stay-at-home parenting drove toy consumption increases, particularly home-schooling toys. The "alternate character" (부캐) trend popularized through brands like Binggrae creating character personas for social media marketing, further expanding the character IP ecosystem.
