Two Conditions for Turning On Outbound Calling
In H2 2025 Korea's text spam reports fell 59.7% to 12.88 million while voice spam rose to 8.73 million. Whether outbound automation is safe comes down to list provenance and the number of items per call, not send volume.
In the second half of 2025, reported and detected text spam in Korea fell 59.7% to 12.88 million cases. Voice spam moved the other way, rising to 8.73 million.
Anyone automating outbound calls now is switching on the channel that just got louder. That does not postpone outbound; it narrows the conditions.
1. The Two Channels Moved in Opposite Directions
reports & detections spam received per person, monthly
total 23.67M cases -39.0% 10.35 messages +2.44
text 12.88M cases -59.7% 2.74 messages -0.30
voice 8.73M cases increase 4.26 messages increase
Source: Korea's Broadcasting and Communications Commission, "Spam Distribution Status, H2 2025" (14 May 2026), covering July–December 2025. Changes are against H1. The total spans categories beyond text and voice, so it exceeds those two rows.
Reports fell 39% while per-person volume rose by 2.44. Bulk sending is filtered out, yet people answer more of these calls than before.
2. What Grew Was Calls With an Open Purpose
The commission attributed the rise to telecom subscription solicitation and similar calls. They share one trait: the purpose is not closed.
You cannot tell what the call is about before answering, or where it ends after. That trait, not send volume, is what gets a call reported. Same automation: an overdue notice goes unreported, a subscription pitch does not.
A call becomes spam at the boundary of its purpose, not at its send volume.
Identical dialing, opposite outcomes on the receiving end. Counts from the commission's H2 2025 release, not any one industry.
