Netflix's Korean series 'My Name' is surging in popularity following the success of 'Squid Game'
- The South Korean crime series "My Name" was the seventh most popular title on Netflix on Tuesday.
- "Squid Game," Netflix's biggest show ever, was No. 2 more than a month after its debut.
Netflix recently found monster success with the Korean-language series "Squid Game," its biggest series of all time. Now, another South Korean show is surging in popularity on the platform.
"My Name," a South Korean crime thriller that debuted on Friday, was the seventh most popular title on Netflix in the US on Tuesday, according to the company's own daily lists of its biggest movies and TV shows that it ranks based on the number of accounts that watched at least two minutes during the previous 24 hours.
"Squid Game" was No. 2 on Tuesday, topped only by "You," the third season of which also premiered on Friday. "Squid Game" debuted on September 17.
Netflix describes "My Name" like this: "Following her father's murder, a revenge-driven woman puts her trust in a powerful crime boss - and enters the police force under his direction."
The series doesn't even have a Rotten Tomatoes critic score as of Tuesday, but it's clearly already catching on with viewers.
The two shows highlight how far ahead of its rivals Netflix is in its international TV strategy, particularly when it comes to South Korean content, which it committed $500 million to this year.
Netflix estimates that "Squid Game" alone will generate nearly $900 million in "impact value," an internal metric that determines the importance of a given series, according to Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw. It cost just $21.4 million to produce, Bloomberg reported based on internal documents it obtained.
In a recent LinkedIn post, Netflix marketing exec Alvin Foo credited the "K-wave," or a surge in popularity of South Korean content, as one reason for "Squid Game's" success, also citing the Oscar-winning film "Parasite" and the music group BTS.
Netflix's global TV chief, Bela Bajaria, told Fortune recently that viewing of Korean-language dramas was up 200% since 2019.