Anthropic tops ChatGPT in South Korea

Anthropic’s Claude has overtaken OpenAI’s ChatGPT in South Korea’s paid generative artificial intelligence market for the first time. (kedglobal.com) KED Global reported April 27 that Claude moved ahead as South Korean companies increased spending on workplace-focused AI tools rather than consumer chat subscriptions. (kedglobal.com) That marks a reversal in a country OpenAI itself described in May 2025 as its largest paid ChatGPT market outside the United States. (kedglobal.com) (reuters.com) The spending mix had already been shifting by February. Claude took 29% of payment volume among seven major generative artificial intelligence services in Korea, while ChatGPT still led with 51.2%, according to Aicel data cited by Korean media. (kmjournal.net) What changed was who was paying. Corporate cards accounted for 61% of Claude’s Korean payments, compared with 45% for ChatGPT, and Claude’s average payment in February reached about 106,000 won, roughly double ChatGPT’s level. (kmjournal.net) Anthropic has been building for that market. In February, Seoul Economic Daily reported the company was hiring sales and development staff in Korea and preparing a local office focused on enterprise customers. (en.sedaily.com) The same report said South Korea ranked seventh globally in Claude usage, citing Anthropic’s Economic Index, while ChatGPT’s monthly active users in Korea had reached about 14.29 million in January. (en.sedaily.com) (anthropic.com) Claude also gained traction with Korean startups and developers. Seoul Economic Daily reported April 11 that Korea Startup Forum offered member companies $10,000 in Claude credits, and Claude’s mobile monthly active users rose to 268,727 in February from 158,136 in January. (en.sedaily.com) South Korea’s artificial intelligence market has become a crowded target for U.S. and local firms. OpenAI set up a Korean entity in 2025, while the South Korean government later selected Naver Cloud, Upstage, SK Telecom, NC AI and LG AI Research for its sovereign AI foundation model project. (kedglobal.com) (korea.net) Claude’s lead in paid spending does not mean ChatGPT has disappeared in Korea. It shows that, by late April, the country’s fastest-growing money in generative AI was coming from enterprise budgets. (kedglobal.com)