South Korea recently ranked first among other countries in most ramen consumed per year per person.The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural affairs conducted a survey between 15 countries which included the US, Korea, China and Japan. This survey seeked to see the average instant ramen consumption per year per person as well as the average total consumption of ramen per year in general.
South Korea took first place with 74.1 instant ramen consumed per year per person while Vietnam was second with 60.3 packs and Indonesia was third with 57.3 packs of ramen. However, for the total consumption of ramen per year, China(including Hong Kong) beat out South Korea with 46 billion packs. South Korea placed 7th in this category with about 3 billion packs of ramen.
Since 2008, export sales in ramen have increased by 67%, going from $363 million dollars to $666 million dollars. The total sales from ramen in 2013 were approximately $1,972,800,000.
While Shin ramen was the most sold ramen for 4 years in a row since 2010, Nongshim was the one who took the lead in sales last year with approximately $1.3 billion dollars in sales. As for what type of ramen people prefer? Packaged ramen accounted for 59.8% and cup noodles accounted for 30.1%. Dried types of noodles which were introduced fairly recently accounted for the other 10.1%.
The amount of ramen imported is small compared to the market size but that too displayed a rapid increase. In 2008 the total money spent in importing foreign ramen was $12.2 million dollars, while in 2013 it went up to $15.3 million dollars.
Source: MBN TV
