As of August 2023, executive chairman of Samsung Electronics Lee Jae-yong (Jay Y. Lee) was the wealthiest person in South Korea, with a net worth of about 7.9 billion U.S. dollars. Although his net worth decreased from the previous year, he rose from second to first place. Seo Jung-jin, the co-founder of Celltrion, followed with about 5.6 billion dollars.

Turbulent times for the wealthy

Despite the country's economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19, South Korea’s wealthiest people lost a significant amount of their net worth because of the poorly performing stock market and a weakened currency. Lee Jae-yong overcame the shrinking demand for tech goods and ranked as the wealthiest South Korean, although his net worth the year before was more than one billion dollars higher. The founder of Kakao, Kim Beom-su, had the same net worth as Lee Jae-yong in 2022. However, he only placed fourth in 2023, losing more than four billion dollars in net worth within the year. In October 2022, Kakao faced public outrage and criticism because of a service outage.

Conglomerates’ dominating position in the South Korean economy

  Although the collective wealth of the 50 wealthiest people in South Korea fell by about 18 percent, conglomerates dominated the market. Samsung Electronics had the highest market capitalization among business groups listed in South Korea, amounting to about 474 trillion South Korean won. The position of the largest businesses represented a significant hurdle for start-ups. South Korea had a low survival rate for new companies compared to the OECD average, discouraging the emergence of new businesses. When asked about the most critical challenges, small- and medium-sized business owners answered that increasing revenue and attracting customers were the most difficult.