Season two of "Squid Game" in its first week of release (Dec. 23-29, 2024) attracted 487.6 million viewing hours, making it the most watched piece of content on Netflix for that period. (Netflix's official Facebook page)

By Park Hye Ri

The second season of the hit Netflix series "Squid Game" has ended a three-year break for the K-drama with nearly 500 million viewing hours in its first week of release.

Netflix Top 10, an official website of the streaming service, on Jan. 1 said that for Dec. 23-29, the series saw a combined 487.6 million viewing hours worldwide. The figure not only topped the non-English TV show rankings but also outperformed those in the categories of English TV series and movies in English or other languages.

In its first week of release, season two broke the record of 448.73 million viewing hours worldwide held by the first season from in the fourth week of September 2021 (Sept. 20-26), and came in second all time to season's one's 571.75 million hours in 2021 in the first week of October (Sept. 27-Oct. 3).

By country, season two topped the Netflix charts in 92 countries including the U.S., France, Japan, India and Australia.

A week after its release on Dec. 26, season two was seventh among non-English TV shows in Netflix. Season one was No. 1 (2.25 billion hours), followed by season four of the Spanish drama "Money Heist" (710.2 million hours) and the first season of France's "Lupin" (396.3 million).

On the same day, Netflix released a special teaser poster for the series' season three showing the deadly robot Young-hee and the latter's male counterpart Cheol-su, which made a surprise appearance in the cookie video in season two's final episode.

"Squid Game" creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk on Dec. 26 told the U.S. entertainment magazine Variety that season three could come out this summer or autumn.

Netflix on Jan. 1 released a special teaser poster for the third season of the hit series "Squid Game." (Netflix)