iPhone, shaking every aspects of Korea’s Digital Industry

Korea has paradoxical position in Digital Industry. We have Samsung and LG which accounts nearly 30% of global handset market. Also Korea is one of the most connected broadband nations.
But at the same time Korea has been notorious for having strong regulations and tough entry barriers which made Korea one of the toughest market to compete.
WIPI, Korean standard of mobile platform, was one good example.Providing LBS related services also needed to acquire license as Korean Government have strong concern on Security/Privacy issues.
Every game which is to be serviced in Korea also should have to apply for the Censorship in order to prove that it is not harmful to play.

But not anymore.

While WIPI has been aboloshied in 2008 already, now Apple’s iPhone is making all these heavy regulations and Korea’s only custom as the story of the past. LBS services can be utilized easily and Wi-Fi is again booming.
Korea reports the fastest adoption rate of iPhone (0.5 million in 4 months while it took 7 months in Japan where the population is 2.5 times bigger than Korea).
Also due to iPhone’s strong impact, Samsung and LG are fighting back seriously to win the customers heart.
Rapidly the Ecosystem in Telecom market is moving away from the Walled Garden as natural paradigm shift is happening from Network Operator to different stakeholders.

And the most important point is that it is just the begging stage.
There are more to be seen in next couple of years in Korea and as always we will see the strong dynamics in Korean digital market with lots of interesting and innovation initiatives.

We, Korean Insight will follow this change closely and post to you.
Enjoy~~

Yours Yunho Chung
Managing Partner, Veyond Partners

YUNHO CHUNG @ LinkedIn
@ Twitter