In the second half of last year, the average monthly total spam received per person was 10.35 messages, up 2.44 from the first half (7.91).
The Korea Media and Communications Commission announced on the 14th the "second-half 2025 spam distribution status." The survey combined a spam reception survey conducted in November last year of 3,000 mobile phone and email users aged 12 to 69 nationwide, and data on user reports and detections.
Text spam continued to decline, but voice spam such as mobile phone sales pitches surged. In the second half of last year, the average monthly number of text spam received per person was 2.74, down 0.3 from the first half (3.04). In contrast, voice spam rose to a monthly average of 4.26, doubling from the first half of last year (2.13).
The Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) analyzed that the expansion of telephone sales activities, such as calls from mobile phone retailers to solicit telecom subscriptions, following the repeal of the Mobile Device Distribution Improvement Act in July last year, had an impact.
By contrast, the total number of spam reports and detections—combining user reports and detections by KISA—continued to decline.
In the second half of last year, the total number of spam reports and detections was 23.67 million, down 39.0% from the first half (38.83 million). During the same period, text spam reports and detections fell 59.7% to 12.88 million, but voice spam rose by 2.87 million to 8.73 million.
The Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) explained that text spam decreased thanks to efforts by the government, telecom operators, and device manufacturers to block illegal spam and strengthen filtering.
The Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) and KISA plan to publish the findings on their website and work with telecom operators and device manufacturers to block voice spam and encourage reporting. The KMCC also plans to promote reporting methods such as easy in-phone reporting, a reporting app, and the 118 counseling center.
Kim Jong-chul, chair of the Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC), said, "We are continuing to reduce text spam through public-private cooperation," and added, "We will create a safe digital environment by regulating illegal mass texting through a sender qualification certification system and a system to recover unjust gains from illegal spam."