Something significant happened in South Korea in 2025 — and the global pet industry is only just beginning to process what it means.
For the first time in the country’s history, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs completed a nationally approved statistical survey on pet ownership in South Korea. Not an industry estimate. Not a private research group’s projection. A government-sanctioned, nationally representative survey of 3,000 households — the kind of data point that tells you a market has arrived.
What it found should make every brand, investor, and operator in the global pet industry pay attention.
Nearly 3 in 10 South Korean households — 29.2%, to be precise — owned a pet in 2025. That is up from 25% just one year earlier. In a single year, ownership penetration jumped more than four percentage points. In the context of a country of 51 million people, that shift represents hundreds of thousands of new pet-owning households entering the market in twelve months.
South Korea’s pet industry is not growing. It is accelerating.
The Numbers Behind the Milestone
The headline figure of 29.2% becomes even more revealing when you look at what is sitting behind it.
Among pet-owning households, dogs remain overwhelmingly dominant at 80.5% — making South Korea one of the most dog-centric pet markets in the world. Cats come second at 14.4%, and fish at 4.1%. The dog-first culture of Korean pet ownership is deeply embedded, but it is shifting. Cat adoption is rising rapidly, particularly among apartment-dwelling millennials in Seoul and other major urban centres, and the fastest growth in the feline segment is expected to come precisely from the demographic that is now reshaping Korean society: single-person households.
Over 40% of all South Korean households are now single-person households — one of the highest proportions among developed economies globally. The reasons are well-documented: one of the world’s lowest fertility rates, delayed marriage, rising urbanisation, and an ageing population. In that social context, pets are not a lifestyle choice. They are a response to loneliness, a source of purpose, and in many cases, a deliberate alternative to traditional family structures.
The Ministry’s data captures the outcome of that shift. The pet market in South Korea, valued at USD 1.56 billion in 2025, is projected to nearly double by 2034, reaching USD 3.5 billion, growing at a CAGR of 9.4%. South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture separately projects the broader pet-related market could reach ₩21 trillion — approximately USD 15.2 billion — by 2032. These are not the numbers of a niche market. They are the numbers of a category undergoing structural transformation.
What Korean Pet Owners Are Actually Spending
The survey’s spending data is where the market intelligence gets particularly interesting for brands and manufacturers.
The average Korean pet-owning household spent ₩121,400 (approximately USD 90) per month on their animal in 2025. That breaks down in a way that tells you exactly where the commercial opportunities are concentrated.
Food and treats accounted for the largest single category at ₩39,900 — approximately USD 26 per month. Veterinary care came second at ₩36,800 (USD 24), which itself included ₩14,000 (USD 9) specifically for treatment of accidents, injuries, and disease. Hygiene products and services rounded out the major categories at ₩21,000 (USD 14) monthly.
Dog owners spend considerably more than cat owners — averaging ₩135,000 (USD 100) per month compared to ₩92,000 (USD 68) for cat-owning households. Given that 80.5% of Korean pet owners have dogs, this gap has an outsized effect on total market value and shapes which product categories see the strongest commercial traction.
For context, a separate KB Financial Group report found that average monthly per-pet spending was as high as ₩194,000 (USD 142) when measured across different survey methodology — a signal that the true spend per pet, when measured comprehensively, is even higher than the Ministry’s baseline figures suggest. South Korean pet owners are not cost-sensitive consumers in this category. They are active, engaged, and willing to spend — and that willingness is growing alongside what the Korean market has already nicknamed “petflation.”
How Koreans Find Their Pets — and What It Reveals
The parallel National Survey on Public Awareness of Animal Welfare, conducted across 5,000 respondents, surfaced something that should matter to every animal welfare organisation, shelter operator, and pet brand thinking about values alignment.
The most common route through which South Koreans acquired pets in 2025 was through acquaintances — word of mouth, personal networks, friends and family — at 46%. Pet shop purchases came second at 28.7%. Adoption of stray cats represented 9% of adoption routes for feline ownership specifically.
What is genuinely striking, however, is the data on future intent. More than 2 in 10 Koreans surveyed — over 20% of respondents — said they plan to adopt a pet within the next year. And among that group, 88% said they are specifically considering adopting lost or abandoned animals.
Read that again: 88% of Koreans planning to get a pet in the coming year say they want a rescue animal.
This is not a fringe sentiment. It is not the position of a small advocacy community. It represents a massive shift in how Korean society thinks about where companion animals come from — and it is happening at the same time as the country’s broader animal welfare consciousness is deepening dramatically.
Animal Welfare Awareness: A Society Growing Up
The welfare data in the Ministry survey is some of the most important material for understanding where South Korea’s pet market is heading.
Nearly three quarters of all South Korean households — 74.9% — are now aware of the major laws and systems that govern animal welfare in the country. That is a remarkable level of legal awareness for what was, not long ago, a market with relatively limited regulatory infrastructure around companion animals.
The gap between pet owners and non-pet owners on this awareness is significant: 90.2% of pet owners are aware of relevant laws, compared to 68.9% of non-owners. But even the 68.9% figure for non-owners is high — it suggests that animal welfare is becoming a mainstream social conversation in South Korea, not one confined to the pet-owning community.
On responsible ownership compliance — following regulations like using leashes outdoors, maintaining identification tags, and cleaning up after pets — 48.8% of respondents gave positive assessments. That is nearly half the population, and the figure has been improving year-on-year.
The data on attitudes to animal abuse is the most striking of all. A full 93.2% of respondents say they support stronger punishment for animal abuse and measures to permanently ban abusers from owning pets. Crucially, there is almost no difference between pet owners (94.3%) and non-pet owners (92.7%) on this question. The moral consensus around animal welfare in South Korea has become so broad that it cuts across the entire adult population, not just those with personal relationships to companion animals.
This is the social context behind the landmark ban on dog meat consumption — a ban that takes full effect in February 2027 — and it is reshaping not just the regulatory landscape but the cultural identity of South Korean pet ownership.
Why People Are Not Getting Pets — and What It Tells the Industry
Understanding what holds people back from pet ownership is just as commercially important as understanding what draws them in. The Ministry survey asked non-owners who have no plans to adopt about their reasons, and the answers are instructive.
The most common barrier was “lack of time,” cited by 25.3% of non-intending adopters. “Financial burden” came second at 18.2%. “Lack of confidence in pet care” was third at 16.3%.
These are not the objections of people who dislike animals. They are the practical concerns of people who take the responsibility of pet ownership seriously — who recognise that bringing an animal into their home is a commitment that involves time, money, and knowledge. The Ministry’s own interpretation of the data framed it clearly: raising a pet in Korea is increasingly understood as a decision defined by time, cost, and responsibility, rather than one driven purely by emotion.
For the pet industry, each of these three barriers represents a product or service opportunity. Time constraints point toward convenience — smart feeders, auto-dispensing litter solutions, dog-walking services, pet daycare. Financial burden points toward accessible pricing, pet insurance (where penetration currently sits at just 12.8% despite 91.7% awareness — a massive untapped gap), and subscription-based care models. Lack of confidence points toward education, community, and the kind of content-driven engagement that pet media platforms like PNN are built to provide.
South Korea as a Mirror for Asia’s Pet Future
For India’s pet industry — for the brands, investors, platform builders, and entrepreneurs building in this space right now — South Korea’s 2025 data is among the most useful reference points available.
The demographic forces driving South Korean pet ownership are variations on forces already visible in Indian metros. Single-person and dual-income households are growing. Birth rates are declining. Urbanisation is accelerating. The generational cohort now entering peak earning and household formation — Millennials and Gen Z — has a fundamentally different relationship with animals than their parents did. They grew up with social media content about pets. They process pet ownership through the lens of wellbeing, science, and emotional connection, not tradition.
South Korea crossed 25% household pet ownership in 2024. In one year, it reached 29.2%. The pet food market is growing at 8.6% CAGR through 2031. The broader pet care market is growing at 9.4% CAGR through 2034. The Ministry of Agriculture projects a market worth USD 15.2 billion by 2032. And perhaps most tellingly: the next wave of adopters overwhelmingly wants rescue animals — a signal of values-driven consumption that will reshape the entire supply chain of how pets enter homes.
India is earlier in this curve. But the direction is identical. The question, as always, is not whether the Indian market will reach Korean levels of ownership and spending intensity. It is who will be positioned to serve that market when it does.
Pets News Network is India’s first dedicated media platform for the pet and animal industry. For breaking global pet news, brand coverage, and advertising enquiries, contact: ankur@petsnewsnetwork.com
