South Korea's advertising market grew at the fastest-ever pace in 2021 on a surge in digital advertisements amid the coronavirus pandemic, a report showed Thursday.

Advertising expenses in Asia's fourth-largest economy amounted to 13.99 trillion won ($11.7 billion) last year, up 20.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the report from Cheil Worldwide Inc.

It represented the largest on-year increase rate since data tracking began in 1973.

The country's top advertising agency said last year's jump got a big boost from the digital ad market's sharp growth in the wake of the prolonged COVID-19 outbreak.

The local digital ad market, including PC and mobile advertisements, spiked 31.5 percent on-year to 7.51 trillion won in 2021.

The share of the digital advertising market thus soared to an all-time high of 53.7 percent last year, marking the first time that it has surpassed the 50 percent level.

The broadcasting ad market expanded 13.4 percent on-year to 4.2 trillion won, with ad expenses for print media edging up 2 percent to 1.4 trillion won.

Cheil Worldwide predicted the country's advertising expenditure to increase 9.3 percent on-year to 15.28 trillion won this year thanks to big domestic and foreign events, including the Beijing Winter Olympics, South Korea's presidential election in March and the 2022 Qatar World Cup. (Yonhap)