The global market share of the Korean entertainment and media industry ranked seventh in the world last year, according to consulting firm PwC on Monday.

Although Korea’s share stood at 2.8 percent of the world’s E&M industry with revenue of $45.1 billion, it is growing faster than those of the U.S. and Japan.

Compared to the previous year, the Korean share increased 7.4 percent, while the average growth rate was 5.1 percent.

Meanwhile, China and Brazil were the only countries that showed a faster growth rate than Korea, at 15.2 percent each.

The combined market share for the top 10 countries stood at 75.1 percent.

At 30.5 percent, or $498.8 billion, the U.S. was top on the list, followed by Japan, China and Germany with $191.6 billion, $115.3 billion and $97.4 billion, respectively.

Experts suggested that Korea’s global E&M share had benefited from its online advertising market.

The Internet advertising industry in Korea grew nearly 30 percent from 2011-2012.

Due to the widespread usage of smartphones in conjunction with multiplying Web portal companies expanding their businesses into online advertising, it is expected that growth will jump to 56.3 percent between 2013 and 2017, according to PwC.

(bjkwon@heraldcorp.com)