The number of one-person creative enterprises in Korea rose more than 15% in a year.
A one-person creative enterprise refers to an enterprise run by one person or joint operators fewer than five without any regular employees. Thirty-two industries are excluded, including real estate, wholesale and retail, lodging, restaurants and bars, mining, water supply, transportation, and finance and insurance.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups on Apr. 6 announced the results of the 2025 survey on one-person creative enterprises, saying the number stood at 1,162,529 in 2023. That was up 15.4% from the previous year (1,007,769).
Average sales per corporations were 266.4 million won, up 11.3% from a year earlier.
One-person creative enterprises accounted for 23.7% of all startups. That was up from 20.9% a year earlier.
By industry, e-commerce had the largest share at 27.9%. It was followed by manufacturing (21.2%) and education services (17.1%). The top three industries accounted for 66.2%.
By region, Gyeonggi accounted for 29.4%, Seoul 22.5%, and Incheon 5.5%, with the capital area making up 57.5%. Non-capital regions accounted for 42.5%.
The average age of representatives was 55.1. By gender, men were 70.7% and women 29.3%.
By business form, sole proprietors accounted for 85.8%, the vast majority. Corporate corporations were 14.2%.
The main customers were individual consumers (B2C) at 78.0%, the largest share. Corporations (B2B) were 19.1%, and government and public institutions (B2G) were 2.4%.
The average years in operation were 13.1 years. The share of corporations established before 2011 was the highest at 39%.
Before starting a business, the average length of service at a previous workplace was 16.3 years. The relevance to the previous industry was found to be 59.7 points.
The top motive for starting a business was "to earn higher income" at 40.0%. It was followed by "aptitude and ability demonstration" at 36.5% and "making a living" at 14.5%.
The average preparation period for starting a business was 13.1 months. It took an average of 2.6 months to generate the first sales after launching. The average time to reach break-even was 29.8 months.
This survey was conducted on a sample of 5,000 enterprises among one-person creative enterprises in 43 industries, based on the Statistical Business Register (SBR).