Global Mobile Perspectives: South Korea

This month, we are excited to share with you new country insights from our Global Mobile Perspectives series.  Doug Yeum, Director of Business Development in South Korea, gives his thoughts on the latest mobile trends unique to South Korea. 

A great year for mobile
In 2010, South Korean consumers proved to device manufacturers and mobile operators that high end devices running iOS and Android would be big.  It’s almost an understatement as traffic from high-end devices in the AdMob network grew 6723% in 2010 over the previous year.  South Korea represents one of three countries that accounted for more than half of AdMob network ad requests last year in JAPAC.  Along with the launch of the iPhone, we’ve seen national brands with high brand awareness, like Samsung and LG, drive significant demand for devices running Android with aggressive in-country marketing.  We anticipate by the end of this year, 40% of all mobile devices in South Korea will be high end devices.

Early adopters
South Korea has a high rate of Internet penetration amongst both households and mobile devices.  Not only are South Koreans well connected, they are fast to adopt new technologies.  For example, new input methods like Voice Search have become very popular compared to other markets.  Even when we compare this growth to other markets, rates of adoption in South Korea have been staggering.  This has all happened in less than two years, which is faster than I’ve seen in any other region globally.

Emergence of data rich services
It’s no surprise that high-end devices have resulted in South Koreans spending more time browsing the web and using apps.  They now have access to cheaper, faster data services and we’ve begun to see increases in mobile video views on YouTube and the emergence of data-intensive services like mobile Voice over IP (VoIP).  I anticipate that we’ll continue to see network improvements for faster data services and increased availability and that data-driven activities will continue to be a large part of how users use their mobile devices.

Thinking mobile
In a recent study from Nielsen and KoreanClick, time spent on the PC has decreased from 43% to 33%, and South Koreans are now spending 23% of their time on mobile media consumption.  We anticipate mobile usage to continue to grow in the next 12 to 18 months, so it’s important for advertisers to think about mobile as a channel to reach their consumers.  Advertisers can easily extend their existing desktop campaigns to include mobile device targeting, or can develop new mobile specific marketing campaigns to reach users as they go mobile.

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We have all seen the recent explosion of apps available to users of high end devices, especially with the popularity of Android.  South Korea is home to a number of global players in the mobile app space.  We anticipate more innovative apps to come in 2011 so now is the perfect time for advertisers to think about reaching users while they are engaged with apps.

Advertisers can learn more about how to reach users on mobile devices in South Korea by visiting the local website http://kr.admob.com/advertise.  For information for app developers looking to grow their business on mobile, visit kr.admob.com/appdevs.

Posted by Doug Yeum, Director of Business Development for South Korea

Global Mobile Perspectives: South Korea
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