Chile, Poland & Singapore Just Joined Korea's Official Hallyu Survey — Here's What the 2026 Data Shows
By the Hallyu101 Editorial Team
Once a year, the Korean government quietly puts a number on something fans have been feeling anecdotally for a while: how far hallyu has actually spread, and where. On March 30, 2026, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE) released the 15th edition of that number — the 2026 Overseas Hallyu Survey — and for the first time in its history, the survey added Chile, Poland, and Singapore to its list of tracked countries. That's not a footnote. It's the government's own research arm formally adding three markets it hadn't previously tracked, which says almost as much as the data itself.
| Released | March 30, 2026, by MCST and KOFICE (data collected Nov 13–Dec 12, 2025) |
| Scope | 30 countries, 27,400 respondents aged 15–59 — up from previous years after adding Chile, Poland, and Singapore |
| Overall favorability | 69.7% of respondents viewed Korean cultural content favorably |
| Biggest gains | UK (+8.0pp), Japan (+6.4pp), Spain (+6.2pp), US (+6.1pp), Australia (+6.0pp) |
| Data limit (important) | Country-specific numbers for Chile, Poland, and Singapore are not broken out in the available English-language reporting — see the note below before you go looking for them |
What the 2026 Overseas Hallyu Survey Actually Measures
The Overseas Hallyu Survey (해외한류실태조사) isn't a fan poll or a marketing study — it's a government-commissioned research project that MCST and KOFICE have run annually since 2012, this year in its 15th round. Fieldwork for the 2026 edition ran from November 13 to December 12, 2025, surveying 27,400 people aged 15 to 59 across 30 countries who had direct experience with Korean cultural content. The survey tracks a mix of measures: overall favorability toward Korean culture, which single image people associate most with Korea, how much people spend on Korean content each month, how many hours they consume it, and — new this year — experience rates for Korean characters and IP and live performances, tracked separately from K-pop for the first time. That last addition is itself a signal: KOFICE is now treating character licensing (think webtoon IP, animated properties) and non-music live events as distinct enough categories to be worth their own line item.
Why Chile, Poland, and Singapore, and Why Now
The official reasoning for adding these three countries hasn't been spelled out in detail in the public releases, but the pattern is worth reading into, because each addition tells a slightly different story. Chile's inclusion is the clearest signal of Latin America maturing as a Hallyu region beyond Brazil and Mexico, which have anchored the survey's Americas bloc for years — K-beauty's export growth into Brazil has already shown that South American demand isn't limited to one country, and Chile reportedly has one of the region's more visible K-pop convention and fan-community scenes, according to fan community accounts, though that isn't independently verified here — either way, it hadn't previously been translated into government-level tracking. Poland's addition tracks with something Central and Eastern European fans have pointed out for years online: Warsaw-area fan communities, tour stops, and translation groups are often described as an unofficial hub for the wider region, though that description isn't independently verified here either, and Poland had never shown up as its own line in this survey — it's been folded into a generic "Europe" picture dominated by the UK, France, Germany, and Spain. Singapore is closer to the opposite case. It isn't a frontier market being discovered; Korean drama viewership, K-beauty retail, and K-pop concert attendance have all been entrenched there for well over a decade. Its addition looks less like expansion into new territory and more like formally counting a market that had simply been absorbed into a broader "Southeast Asia" bucket until now. Put together, the three additions read as the survey catching up to where fandom already was, rather than the government spotting brand-new growth out of nowhere.
The Headline Numbers
Overall favorability toward Korean cultural content landed at 69.7% across the full 30-country sample — roughly seven in ten respondents. K-pop kept its position as the single image most associated with Korea for a ninth consecutive year, named by 17.5% of respondents, ahead of Korean food (12.1%), dramas (9.5%), beauty and cosmetics (6.2%), and film (5.9%). Worth noting: that ranking measures which image people associate with Korea, which is a different question from which content people actually consume most — on the experience-rate side of the survey, food edged out film, drama, and music as the category respondents had personally engaged with most. Spending and viewing time both ticked up: average monthly spending on Korean content rose to $16.60 from $15.40 the previous year, and average monthly viewing time rose to 14.7 hours from 14. KOFICE president Park Chang-sik summed up the broader trend by saying Hallyu "has moved beyond a simple content trend to become structurally embedded in global markets" — a claim that's hard to fully verify from favorability data alone, though the gains in traditionally slower-adopting Western markets are at least consistent with it.
| Region | Countries/regions surveyed | New in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Asia-Pacific | 12 (incl. China, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia) | Singapore |
| Americas | 6 (incl. US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina) | Chile |
| Europe | 8 (incl. UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) | Poland |
| Middle East | 2 (UAE, Saudi Arabia) | — |
| Africa | 2 (Egypt, South Africa) | — |
For context on how favorability breaks down by country, the highest overall scores in the 2026 survey came from Southeast and South Asia — the Philippines led at 87.0%, followed by India at 83.8%, Indonesia at 82.7%, and Thailand at 79.4%. Those numbers didn't make many international headlines, since high favorability in Southeast and South Asia has held steady for years — but media coverage largely focused on markets that started from a much lower baseline and saw sharper year-over-year gains:
| Country | Favorability change vs. prior year |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | +8.0 percentage points |
| Japan | +6.4 percentage points |
| Spain | +6.2 percentage points |
| United States | +6.1 percentage points |
| Australia | +6.0 percentage points |
What We Don't Know Yet
Here's the honest limitation: at the time of writing, the English-language coverage of this survey — The Korea Herald, Asia Business Daily's English edition, and IFACCA's summary — reports the topline 69.7% favorability figure and the country-by-country favorability changes for existing markets, but none of it breaks out individual numbers for Chile, Poland, or Singapore specifically. The full statistical report, published in Korean through KOFICE's research archive, likely contains that country-level detail, but it wasn't accessible in a form we could verify and translate accurately for this piece. Rather than estimate or infer numbers that haven't been confirmed, we're flagging this clearly: if you're looking for Chile's, Poland's, or Singapore's individual favorability score or spending figures, that data isn't yet reliably available in English, and we'd rather tell you that than guess. What is confirmed is the structural fact that these three countries are now part of the tracked sample going forward, which means next year's survey should offer the first real year-over-year comparison.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Overseas Hallyu Survey?
It's an annual government-commissioned research project run by Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and KOFICE since 2012, tracking foreign audiences' awareness, favorability, and consumption of Korean cultural content. The 2026 edition is its 15th round.
Why were Chile, Poland, and Singapore added in 2026?
The survey expanded from its previous country list to 30 total, adding these three for the first time. Official reasoning wasn't detailed publicly. In the editorial team's reading of the pattern, each addition reflects something different: Chile represents growing Latin American demand beyond Brazil, Poland reflects an established but previously untracked Central/Eastern European fan hub, and Singapore reflects a mature Southeast Asian market being formally counted rather than folded into a regional average.
What's Korea's overall favorability score in the 2026 survey?
69.7% of the 27,400 respondents across 30 countries expressed a favorable view of Korean cultural content.
What image is most associated with Korea, according to the survey?
K-pop, for a ninth consecutive year, named by 17.5% of respondents — ahead of Korean food (12.1%), dramas (9.5%), beauty and cosmetics (6.2%), and film (5.9%). Food actually scores higher on a separate "experience rate" measure of what people have personally consumed.
Is there country-specific data for Chile, Poland, and Singapore?
Not yet in the English-language reporting available as of this writing. The full Korean-language statistical report may contain country-level breakdowns, but we haven't been able to independently verify specific figures for these three countries and won't speculate on numbers that aren't confirmed.
Related Reading
- How Big Is Hallyu in 2026? The Data Behind K-Culture's Global Boom
- K-Beauty Exports to Brazil: Growth in 2026
- K-Food Goes Mainstream: The 2026 Milestone
- K-Food's Global Export Boom in 2026
Written by the Hallyu101 editorial team, based on reporting from The Korea Herald, Asia Business Daily's English edition, and IFACCA, cross-referenced against Korean-language coverage of the official Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism / KOFICE announcement, cross-checked as of August 27, 2026.
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