Korea Ecommerce Market Size (2026 Data)
Korea's online shopping reached about KRW 272 trillion (US$190B) in 2025, 78% on mobile. Official figures, what they include, platforms and payments.
Korea's online shopping transactions reached about KRW 272 trillion in 2025 (roughly US$190 billion), up 4.9% on 2024, according to preliminary figures from Statistics Korea. About 78% of that was spent on mobile devices. The total covers goods and services, including food delivery and travel; goods alone came to about KRW 185 trillion (roughly US$130 billion).
This page sets out the official numbers, explains what they include, and looks at who sells, what Koreans buy from abroad and how they pay. It ends with what the data means for a foreign brand's Korean website. US-dollar conversions are approximate, at about KRW 1,422 to the dollar (derived from the Bank of Korea's 2025 GDP in won and in dollars).
How big is the ecommerce market in South Korea?
The official measure is the online shopping transaction value (온라인쇼핑 거래액) that Statistics Korea, now the Ministry of Data and Statistics, publishes every month and summarises once a year. The 2025 annual figures were released on 2 February 2026 and are marked preliminary.
| Measure | 2024 | 2025 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online shopping transactions (goods and services) | KRW 259.4 trillion | KRW 272.0 trillion | Statistics Korea |
| Year-on-year growth | — | +4.9% | Statistics Korea |
| Mobile shopping transactions | KRW 198.3 trillion | KRW 211.1 trillion | Statistics Korea |
| Mobile share of the total | 76.5% | 77.6% | Calculated from Statistics Korea figures |
| Approximate US-dollar value of the 2025 total | — | about US$190 billion | Our conversion at about KRW 1,422 per US$ |
For scale, the Bank of Korea puts the country's 2025 nominal GDP at KRW 2,663.3 trillion, or about US$1.87 trillion, with gross national income of US$36,855 per person. The population was about 51.1 million at the end of 2025, according to resident registration figures from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
Statistics Korea revises earlier months when it publishes annual corrections, so treat the 2025 values as provisional. The full-year 2026 figures are due in early February 2027.
What does the KRW 272 trillion figure include?
What the number includes. Statistics Korea's online shopping value counts goods and services sold through online shopping malls operating in Korea. Services such as food delivery orders, travel and transport bookings and e-coupons made up about KRW 87.5 trillion of the 2025 total. Take those out and goods sold online come to about KRW 184.6 trillion (roughly US$130 billion).
The three largest categories in 2025 show how much of the total is services:
| Category | Share of 2025 online shopping value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Food services (mostly delivery orders) | 15.3% | Statistics Korea |
| Food and beverages | 13.9% | Statistics Korea |
| Travel and transport services | 12.5% | Statistics Korea |
| Goods only, all categories | about KRW 184.6 trillion | Calculated from Statistics Korea figures |
Food delivery is the single largest online category in Korea. If you sell physical products, the goods-only figure is the more relevant market size.
Research firms and payment providers publish their own "Korea ecommerce market" estimates. Their definitions differ: some count goods only, some leave out travel or delivery, some use different years and exchange rates. Their totals will not match this one, and that does not make either figure wrong. When you need a number you can cite in a plan or a board paper, use the official series and say which definition you used. You will also see claims such as "Korea is the world's Nth-largest ecommerce market"; these come from different measurers and years, so we do not repeat them here.
What share of online shopping in Korea is mobile?
About 78% in 2025. Mobile transactions were KRW 211.1 trillion out of KRW 272.0 trillion, a share of 77.6%, up from 76.5% in 2024. Statistics Korea does not state the annual share in its text, so this is our calculation from its table. In the monthly releases during 2025, the mobile share ranged from 75.9% to 77.4%.
Mobile here means purchases made through mobile devices, whether in an app or a mobile browser. In practice, for most Korean consumers your mobile site or app is your shop. A desktop-first design that merely shrinks on a phone will show in the numbers.
What is the largest ecommerce platform in Korea?
No official body publishes a comparable market-share table for Korean platforms, so we do not quote one. What is on record is each company's own disclosure.
Coupang reported 24.6 million Product Commerce active customers in the fourth quarter of 2025, up 8% on a year earlier, in its annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. An active customer is someone who ordered at least once in the quarter. Against a population of about 51 million, that is a very large reach for one retailer.
Coupang's 10-K also describes the delivery promise that shapes Korean expectations: free next-day Rocket Delivery "for orders placed anytime of the day, even seconds before midnight", and, for members, dawn delivery by 7 a.m. on certain products ordered before midnight.
Other channels a foreign brand will meet:
- Naver, the leading search portal, which also runs shopping search and a marketplace for small sellers. See Korea internet usage and platforms for how search and shopping overlap there.
- Open marketplaces such as 11st and Gmarket.
- Brand-owned stores, often built on Korean platforms such as Cafe24. We compare the options in Cafe24 vs Shopify for selling in Korea.
Most foreign brands end up combining a marketplace presence with their own Korean store. Our guide to selling online in Korea covers that choice.
How much do Koreans buy from overseas online stores?
Korean shoppers bought about KRW 8.5 trillion (roughly US$6 billion) directly from overseas online stores in 2025, up 5.2%. Statistics Korea reports the split by origin:
| Origin of overseas online purchases | Share of 2025 total | Source |
|---|---|---|
| China | 65.5% | Statistics Korea |
| United States | 16.6% | Statistics Korea |
| Japan | 7.1% | Statistics Korea |
| European Union | 6.2% | Statistics Korea |
| Total | KRW 8.5 trillion, +5.2% | Statistics Korea |
Cross-border purchases are small next to the KRW 272 trillion spent with domestic online stores. Most Korean spending goes through Korean storefronts with Korean payment and delivery. Selling cross-border from an overseas site is possible, but you compete on Korean shoppers' terms. In the other direction, Korean sellers' online exports reached about KRW 3.0 trillion in 2025, up 16.4%.
How do Koreans pay online?
Mostly by card and by "easy-pay" (간편결제): wallets such as Naver Pay, Kakao Pay, Samsung Pay and Toss that store a card or bank account and confirm with a PIN or fingerprint.
| Payment measure (2025, daily average) | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Easy-pay transactions | 35.57 million a day, +14.9% | Bank of Korea |
| Easy-pay value | KRW 1.1 trillion a day, +14.6% | Bank of Korea |
| All payment card spending | KRW 3.6 trillion a day, +4.7% | Bank of Korea |
| of which credit cards | KRW 2.86 trillion a day | Bank of Korea |
| Card payments without presenting the physical card (phones, online) | about KRW 1.7 trillion a day, +7.3% | Bank of Korea |
| Card payments with the physical card | about KRW 1.4 trillion a day, −0.4% | Bank of Korea |
The last two rows cover card spending at domestic merchants tracked by the Bank of Korea. Payments made through phones and online now exceed payments made by handing over a plastic card.
For an online store, Korean shoppers expect to see local cards and the main easy-pay wallets at checkout. A foreign card form alone is not enough. That usually means a Korean payment gateway (PG). We explain the options in Korean payment gateway integration and Toss Payments integration, and what a global processor can and cannot do in Does Stripe work in South Korea?.
What this means if you're launching in Korea
The market is large and mostly mobile, and it runs on local habits. For a foreign brand's website or app, that translates into a short list:
- Design for the phone first. About 78% of online spend is mobile. Build and test the Korean pages on phones first, including inside the KakaoTalk and Naver in-app browsers that open links from chats and search.
- Offer Korean checkout. Local cards and easy-pay wallets through a Korean PG, with the payment window tested on mobile. Plan the PG contract early; it depends on your business setup.
- Send order updates on KakaoTalk. Many Korean stores send order, payment and delivery notices as KakaoTalk business messages rather than email, and shoppers look for them there. See KakaoTalk Channel and AlimTalk.
- Register with Naver Search Advisor. Google Search Console alone does not cover Korea's leading search engine. The steps are in Naver SEO for foreign websites.
- State delivery times plainly. Shoppers who know next-day and dawn delivery will look for a delivery date before they pay. If you ship from abroad, say how long it takes and what customs or duties apply.
- Write the site in Korean. Prices in won, Korean product pages, Korean address search and Korean customer contact. Our Korean website localization checklist and Korean web design guide go through the details, and Do you need a Korean website? helps decide how far to go.
For the shopper side of the same data, see Korean consumer behavior online.
Frequently asked questions
How big is the ecommerce market in South Korea?
Statistics Korea puts 2025 online shopping transactions at about KRW 272 trillion (roughly US$190 billion), up 4.9% on 2024. That figure is preliminary and includes services such as food delivery and travel. Goods alone came to about KRW 185 trillion.
What share of online shopping in Korea is mobile?
About 78% in 2025: KRW 211.1 trillion of KRW 272.0 trillion was spent through mobile devices, up from 76.5% in 2024. Monthly shares in 2025 ranged from 75.9% to 77.4%.
What is the largest ecommerce platform in Korea?
There is no official market-share ranking. By its own reporting, Coupang had 24.6 million active customers in the fourth quarter of 2025, which is a very large reach in a country of about 51 million. Naver, open marketplaces and brand-owned stores are the other main channels.
How much do Koreans buy from overseas sites?
About KRW 8.5 trillion (roughly US$6 billion) in 2025, up 5.2%. China accounted for 65.5% of that, the United States 16.6%, Japan 7.1% and the European Union 6.2%.
Does the Korean ecommerce figure include food delivery and travel?
Yes. Statistics Korea's online shopping value includes services. Food services were 15.3% of the 2025 total and travel and transport 12.5%. Excluding all services, goods sold online came to about KRW 184.6 trillion.
Sources
All checked October 2026. Statistics Korea figures for 2025 are preliminary.
- Statistics Korea (Ministry of Data and Statistics), Online Shopping Trends, December and annual 2025, 2 February 2026, including the 2025 cross-border online trade tables
- Bank of Korea, GDP and GNI for Q4 and full year 2025 (preliminary), 10 March 2026, release document via the KDI Economic Information and Education Center
- Bank of Korea, Electronic payment services in 2025, 20 March 2026, release document via the KDI Economic Information and Education Center
- Bank of Korea, Domestic payment and settlement trends in 2025, 30 March 2026, release document via the KDI Economic Information and Education Center
- Coupang, Inc., Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025, filed with the US SEC
- Ministry of the Interior and Safety, resident registration population at 31 December 2025, as reported by Newsis, 4 January 2026
Planning a Korean store or site? Start from our Korea market entry overview or send us your project details. We consult in English, meet in Korea and can invoice in US dollars.