The domestic film industry has suffered huge losses from the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, with the size of the market plummeting by 40 percent last year compared to 2019 figures.

According to the Korean Film Council on Tuesday, the domestic film industry was valued at one-point-02 trillion won in 2021, declining for the second consecutive year.

The latest figure is only about 40-point-eight percent of the value in 2019, which reached two-point-51 trillion won.

Total theater ticket sales last year stood at 384-point-five billion won, up 14-point-five percent on-year. The number of moviegoers also rose one-point-seven percent to just over 60 million.

Although sales grew from 2020, they only equated to 30-point-five percent of sales from pre-pandemic 2019.

Domestic films, which had claimed a larger share of the box office compared to overseas productions for ten straight years since 2011, only accounted for 30-point-one percent of ticket sales last year, marking the first time the figure dropped below 50 percent in 11 years.