Hallyu is rising as a key player in India’s pop-culture market, and it is generally admitted that COVID-19-related factors contributed to its spread in India. Compared to 2004 to 2020 pre-COVID-19 period, the volume of Hallyu content, especially digital content, consumed in the Indian market has increased by a huge margin in almost every sector. The music sector showed the highest increase(72.4%), followed by games(70.3%), drama(70.2%), and movies(69.7%). A close look at the long-term trends in the Indian market since 2004 reveals that Indian consumers’ consumption of and level of interest in Hallyu began to grow notably from around 2020, the year that COVID-19 became a full-fledged outbreak (see Figures 1 and 2 below).
Further, the advancement in the IT conditions in India provided timely momentum for the spread of Hallyu content during the pandemic situation. Furthermore, Korean dramas and movies were introduced to many Indian consumers through global overt the top (OTT) platforms, particularly Netflix and India’s domestic OTT platforms. In other words, the improvement of India’s IT environment created a great opportunity for Hallyu content to flourish in India as it increased access to Hallyu content via various digital platforms.

India’s millennials are open to cultural content from a range of different cultures and the spread of Hallyu content in India has been possible due to their consumption. India’s millennial population is estimated at 440 million, accounting for 34% of the total population of India. The size of the young population in India exceeds even that of China and Brazil. Beyond domestic content represented by “Bollywood,” with the spread of internet and smartphone, in India are fast becoming the main consumers of a variety of cultural content. In India, enthusiastic consumers of K-culture content are mostly women, and young females in particular are leading the popularity of Hallyu. Women constitute the majority of “enthusiastic consumers” of Hallyu in almost every content category, including fashion, drama, movies, and music. Moreover, compared to the pre-COVID-19 times, women’s consumption of Hallyu content increased by a much larger margin than men for most of the content type. (see Figure 3 below).

Women also had higher Hallyu impact index(66.0) than men(62.7) (See Figure 4 below). In terms of age, participants in their 20s to 40s scored the highest. In particular, the level of perceived impact of Hallyu content was the highest in their 30s(68.4) (see Figure 4). Given that the beauty(42.5%) and fashion(39.8%) categories account for the largest share of the Hallyu content consumed by Indian consumers, female consumers may bring substantial economic impact.

Although various factors play a role in Indian women’s attraction to Hallyu, the context of Indian women’s increasing interest in taking social roles should be particularly noted. Young women in India have been more keenly aware of their social roles as they are exposed to different cultures and gained more opportunities to increase social participation and economic power. Accordingly, they are becoming more attentive to the difficulties that women face and their social roles. Such tendencies are reflected in recent Indian movies as well. For example, the 2022 movie Gangubai Kathiawadi: the Mafia Queen, was a mega-hit in India as it portrayed the struggle of lower-caste women advocating their rights based on a true story. A look at the Korean movies favored by Indian consumers also reveals Indian women’s preferences. Among recently released Korean movies, Train To Busan(2016), Midnight(2021), and Parasite(2019) took the top rank in the Indian market. Where as Train To Busan and Parasite are globally renowned movies with large fanbases in countries beyond India. However, Midnight was uniquely popular in India, especially among women. Although different factors may have been contributed to this success, the movie particularly attracted young Indian female audiences as it has well presented the social threats that women (including the deaf) confront in society and was a thriller that portrayed women’s independent power in overcoming those threats instead of being dragged around as victims. (see Figure 5 below)

Indian consumers are finding diverse types of Hallyu content desirable. Indian consumers’ perceived level of popularity and favorability of Hallyu content is evenly high across various content types. Regarding the popularity of different Hallyu content, beauty(54.8%), games(54.7%), and fashion(53.5%) ranked the highest, closely followed by movies(51.3%) and music(51.2%). Even the lowest ranked “book(e-book)” category was highly popular as 44.5% of respondents reported that Korean books are popular. Similarly, respondents reported evenly high levels of favorability for Hallyu content across various content types. Favorability is considerably high for the beauty(93.2%), music(92.4%), comedy show(92.2%), fashion(92.2%), and movie(91.2%) categories. Such high levels of Favorability indicate that Indian consumers have begun to recognize to some extent that many types of Korean cultural content are highly competitive. It further indicates that a wider consumer base for Hallyu content has been secured and that Hallyu content has the potential to consistently enter and take root in the Indian market.

Hallyu content has deepened Indian consumers’ understanding of Korean cultural content and increased their familiarity with Korean culture. In general, the cultural gap between India and Korea is wider than that between India and Northeast and Southeast Asian countries. However, the recent trend suggests that Indian consumers are starting to understand Korean culture by enjoying the high quality of Hallyu content. Many Indian consumers have reported that “well-structured plot” and “actor’s great performances” are the main contributors to the popularity of K-drama and movies. In the case of K-pop, “great performance”, “attractive appearance/style of the singer”, and “addictive chorus/rhythm” are the main contributors to the popularity of K-pop. This may suggest that Korean songs may appeal to Indian consumers, as India has traditionally focused on similar elements in music. Korean fashion items are also highly regarded in terms of their high quality, attractive design, and product variety. Interestingly, Indian consumers reported that “being able to indirectly experience Korean culture” is an important factor contributing to the popularity of comedy show content, which suggests that Indian consumers are becoming much more interested in Korean culture.

However, there remains some challenges for Hallyu content to spread more widely among Indian consumers. The language barrier is most frequently cited, as most Indian consumers must read the subtitles for Korean dramas, movies, and K-pop songs. Given that most of the foreign content consumed in India is dubbed, more efforts need to be made to provide culturally adapted dubbed K-drama and movie content in various local dialects to meet the demands of Indian consumers. Many Korean comedy shows are heavily subtitled, but it should be noted that copious subtitles could weaken the popularity of Hallyu content in India. As for K-pop songs, the use of English lyrics could effectively target the Indian market, as Indian consumers perceive a wider cultural gap listening to lyrics in Korean, with which they feel unfamiliar, than in English.
Apparently, Indian consumers are still feeling some distance between Indian culture and Korean cultural content. In dramas and comedy shows, many Indians feel resistant to the “strong Korean elements inherent in the content.” In movies and music, “inappropriate comments and behaviors by Korean actors/staff” and “content contradicting the social/moral values of India” are not received well. In terms of fashion products, many consumers have complained about “less size inclusivity”, which might be attributable to cultural differences between the two cultures in the fashion industry. Although Indian consumers will inevitably find unfamiliar elements in Korean culture when enjoying Korean content, it is important to bridge the gap between the two cultures by localizing Hallyu content to some extent.

Ripple effects from the spread of Hallyu content can be increasingly observed throughout the country. Many Indian consumers who enjoy Hallyu content also like other Korean products, as can be observed for most of the products and services presented in Figure 10 below. Even taking into consideration that Korean high involvement products such as home appliances, cars, mobile phones, and laptops have successfully established a positive brand image for Korean products, the major ripple effects of Hallyu are clear given that the enthusiastic users of Hayllyu content are likely to have a higher rate of purchase experience of Korean goods. That is, it may be possible to increase sales of Korean products in India by combining their brand power and technological competitiveness with the ripple effects of Hallyu content. Meanwhile, increasing consumption of and interest in Hallyu content is also positively impacting sales of low-involvement products including food, clothes, and cosmetics, while Indian consumers show similar rate of purchase experiences of Korean high-involvement products regardless of their experience with Hallyu content. That is, it is assumed that Hallyu content consumption has a relatively direct and short-term influence on consumers’ purchase of low-involvement products.

It has been clearly observed that high preferences for Hallyu content enhance national reputation and improve Indian people’s perceptions of Korea. As can be seen in Figure 11 below, Indian consumers who greatly prefer Hallyu content clearly have a much better perception of Korea than those who do not. It is particularly encouraging to see that Korea is perceived not only as an economically advanced country but also a cultural powerhouse by Indian people given the pride they take in their own cultural heritage.

As Hallyu spreads in India, its ripple effects gain further reach. Due to the Covid-19 situation, the number of Indian consumers who use Hallyu content has skyrocketed, and young female consumers in particular are engaging with more diverse categories of Hallyu content. Additionally, along with the improvement in Korea’s national reputation, preference for Korean products among Indian consumers have reportedly increased.
Regional limitations have been a constant issue for Hallyu in India up to the present. That is because the popularity of Hallyu content has long been a “unique” phenomenon restricted to northeast India, where Hallyu content was first introduced. The region is close to Southeast Asia and has cultural and ethnic similarities with Korea. As Hallyu content gained popularity in Asia in the early 2000s, and Hindi content was prohibited in the Manipur region in the northeast part of India, Hallyu began gaining popularity in India, especially in northeastern India. By the early 2010s, however, Hallyu content rarely received public attention in the Indian mainland, and it was treated as minority culture, as its popularity was restricted to the northeastern region.
Recently, however, new trends are emerging. According to Google Trends, in 2019, high levels of interest in the keyword “K-pop” were observed primarily in northeastern regions such as Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram, while very low levels of interest were found in other regions. That changed in 2022, when interest in the keyword “K-pop” increased across the country, although it remains higher in the northeastern region. Similar changes were observed in levels of interest in the keywords such as “K-drama” and “K-beauty.”

The fierce competition among Indian students to enter the Korean language department at Indian universities is another indicator of how deeply Hallyu is taking root in India. In 2022, at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the top university in India, as many as 100,000 students applied to the Department of Korean language, which admits only 30 students. According to the Dean of the Department of Korean Language at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Korean Language Department is the most popular among the university’s foreign language departments and is the most competitive department for admission. On the basis of that popularity, the Indian government adopted Korean language as an official second language for the regular school curriculum in 2020. All this implies that young Indians who experienced Hallyu content are willing to learn more about Korea. In other words, Hallyu in India is making a leap to a higher level of popularity.
Regardlessly, Hallyu has a relatively short history and a weak fan and consumer base in India. Considering India’s long cultural history, Indian people’s great preference for their own culture, and their long-established familiarity with western culture, greater endeavors should be made to build stronger bonds in extensive cultural sectors between the two countries. Efforts toward more cultural exchanges not only in the context of pop-culture content but also in diverse areas such as traditional culture, the fine arts, and language are in order. The involvement of the government and other relevant authorities in those efforts is also important. Moreover, we need to connect Hallyu in India with Korea’s nation branding. The nation branding of Korea formed through Hallyu content is relatively weaker in India than in Southeast Asia. As Hallyu has begun to improve Korea’s reputation and increase preference for Korean products and services in India, now is the optimal time for the Korean government to strive and continue this momentum. Specifically, the government needs to provide more support for Korean enterprises operating in India (particularly small and medium-sized enterprises) by combining their marketing efforts with Hallyu content, while introducing Hallyu content and representative Korean products and services in online and offline Korea–India business exhibitions and other cultural exchange projects.
That being said, adverse effects that could arise from excessively connecting Hallyu content and the Korean national image must be carefully considered. In particular, any “cultural supremacy”-based approach should be avoided in targeting the Indian market, as Indian people are highly proud of their culture, as noted. What is more important is to provide comprehensive “storytelling” on the basis of local needs through which Korean products, technologies, and culture can contribute to the relevant sectors.
In consideration of India’s large population, economic scale, high proportion of younger populations, and rapid spread of digital media, the potential of Hallyu content is growing, and it could play a role in improving the relationship between Korea and India. At the end of 2022, the Korean government announced the “Indo-Pacific Strategy for Freedom, Peace, and Prosperity,” which set the promotion of strategies for the “enhancement of mutual understanding and exchange,” as a key task to be undertaken in order to develop a deeper relationship with India, one of Korea’s core allies in the Indo-Pacific region. In conclusion, at this point, we must make multi-faceted efforts to spread Hallyu in India, expand cultural exchanges with India, improve Korea’s nation branding, and enhance mutual understanding between the two countries.