An estimated 30 percent of South Koreans today have at least one pet, but most pets spend nearly six hours alone at home on average every day, a report showed Sunday.
Some 80 percent of pet owners said they leave their pets alone at home at least once throughout the day and for an average of 5 hours and 54 minutes daily, according to the latest annual report issued by the KB Financial Research Institute. The 2025 Korea Pet Report was based on a survey involving some 2,000 pet owners aged 20 to 69 across the country, coupled with data provided by Statistics Korea.
Overall, a total of 15.46 million South Koreans, or some 29.9 percent of the population, owned at least one pet as of end-2024. In terms of households, 5.91 million had pets in the cited period, which gained 1.1 percent on-year.
Around 4.55 million households raised dogs, while 1.37 million had cats. The figures gained 40,000 and 20,000 on-year, respectively.
A single household spent an average 194,000 won ($143) per month on their pets, excluding vet bills. The figure has increased by 26 percent from 154,000 won as of end-2023. Spending on pet food accounted for 35.1 percent, while snacks and supplements took up 22.5 percent.
Some 70.2 percent of households with pets responded that they had to pay vet bills for treatments in the past two years. The average cost of vet bills in the cited period came to 1.02 million won, nearly doubling from 577,000 won in 2023.
Only 12.8 percent of pet owners said they applied for pet insurance, with many citing the need for vets to adopt a shared price standard for treatments for the programs to be widely adopted.
mkjung@heraldcorp.com
