SEOUL-- South Korea's content industry made a rebound in sales in the first half from a year earlier on rapid growth in advertising and cartoon sectors, a government report showed Tuesday.

Industry-wide sales reached 61.2 trillion won (US$51.3 billion) in the first six months of this year, up 6 percent from the previous year, according to the report by the culture ministry and the Korea Creative Content Agency.

It marked a turnaround from a 1.9 percent on-year drop in the first half of last year due mainly to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sales of advertisement and cartoons expanded 24.9 percent and 22.9 percent, respectively, to lead the first-half growth, followed by those of video games with 10 percent.

But the film sector posted a 36.1 percent on-year plunge in the January-June period due to a sharp drop in ticket sales and productions.

Exports of South Korean content increased 6.8 percent on-year to $5.28 billion in the six months through June.

Overseas sales of cartoons grew the most, surging 45.5 percent from a year ago, while exports for ads jumped 36 percent on-year and those of films increased 13.1 percent.

The report was compiled based on business results of 2,700 companies as well as an analysis of data from 138 listed firms.

Source: Yonhap News Agency