“Squid Game” has been a valuable piece of original content for Netflix in its own right but perhaps the most impactful thing it did for the platform was expand the audience for Korean dramas and turn this category of content into the moneymaker it is for the platform today.
To put a number on the far reaching impacts of this show, Parrot Analytics’ Streaming Economics system estimates that since Q4 2021 (the quarter after “Squid Game” premiered), Korean dramas have been responsible for $3.4 billion in subscriber revenue for Netflix globally.
To date, the peak impact of K-dramas for Netflix was in Q1 2022 when these shows were responsible for just over 5% of Netflix’s subscriber revenue through acquiring and retaining subscribers for the platform.