3 Posts about 'Mobile Handset'
Many Changes led by iPhone :: 2010/06/04 17:13
Since KT launched iPhone in November of 2009, the Korean mobile market has experienced a lot of changes. Above all, when I am on my way to work everyday, I am able to witness many people who are doing something with their iPhone. As well as the rapid increase of iPhone users, iPhone has made many changes in an interesting Asian market.
According to TrendMonitor (http://www.trendmonitor.co.kr), the Korean consumers' interest about smartphone is drastically increasing in 2010. At their same consumer research which was surveyed in April of 2009, 37% of 1,000 prospective consumers had intentions to buy smartphones, but about 68% responded that they have strong intentions to buy smartphone at this year's same research. This result shows a tremendous change of Korean mobile handset market. Although smartphone users have steadily increased in the global market, only early adopters have chose smartphones in the Korean market. Most of people have used feature phones and Korean mobile operators have also pushed feature phones to their market and customers. However, the iPhone opened the impregnable fortress against smartphone. Since the last November, around 0.7 mil Korean people chose iPhone. As well as iPhone, other smartphones also got good grades. For instance, KT's strong competitor, SK Telecom attracted around 0.6 mil new subscribers with Samsung Omnia 2. According to KT's research institute, there would be 4.9mil smartphone subscribers - about 10% of total mobile subscribers - in the late this year. Also, 20% of total subscribers will use smartphones in 2011 and 33% in 2012.
Until 2009, Nespot, KT's Wi-Fi hotspot service, was a nuisance of KT. Since 2002 when KT launched this service, Nespot has barely survived. For several years, KT had been maintaining around 0.3 to 0.4 mil subscribers. I think that this service might be under a severe deficit operation for the last several years. However, since KT released iPhone, they repositioned the Wi-Fi hotspot service as a complementary network of mobile networks such as WCDMA. They provided free Wi-Fi services to iPhone users and utilized the strategy as a marketing communication tool. Also, KT announced that they will invest more money to build up Wi-Fi zones from currently 16,000 spots to 30,000 spots. As a result, their competitor, SK Telecom decided to build about 10,000 Wi-Fi zones named T-Zone and open this network freely to all people, including their competitors' customers as well as their own customers. In near future, Korean people might be able to use free public Wi-Fi service everywhere.
1. The rise of smartphone
2. Good fight of foreign manufacturers' handsets
The rise of smartphone made another change in the Korean market. This is that foreign handset manufacturers began fighting well against strong Korean manufacturers such as Samsung and LG. Until 2009, the Korean mobile handset market was dominated by pure Korean players, including Samsung, LG and Pantech. Motorola was only one foreign manufacturer has survived in the Korean market. However, iPhone gave other foreign players wonderful opportunities to go into the Korean market. As KT attacks SK Telecom with their exclusive iPhone, SK Telecom selected a strategy that they target smartphone-friendly consumers with a lot of types of smartphone. According to SKT's announcement about their smartphone lineup from April through June, they will launch ten smartphones and six of them will be supplied by foreign manufacturers, including HTC, Motorola, Sony-Ericsson and RIM. This change makes the existing rulers such as Samsung and LG get be nervous about the situation. I believe that the new tension in this saturated market will become a new starting point of new innovation and development.
SK Telecom's prospective smartphone lineup
3. New spotlight on Wi-Fi
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LGE's Counterattack in Korean Mobile Handset Market. :: 2009/07/21 01:11
For several years, Samsung Electronics had governed the Korean mobile handset market. Samsung's mobile handset had been recognized as a unchangeable number one handset to most of Korean consumers.
However, I want to venture to say... "LGE's counterattack finally begins."
Still, quantitative statistics regarding the Korean mobile handset market shows that Samsung's mobile handsets is governing the Korean market through maintaining around 50 % market share. However, I am feeling that many young people just started to be attracted by LGE's innovative handset design. Recently, LGE launched several popular mobile handsets such as lollipop, cookie phone and arena phone. Many young people are enthusiastic on the innovative designs and user interfaces. On the other hand, Samsung maintain their classical designs.
I believe that LGE will overcome the old barrier of Samsung withing several years in the Korean mobile handset markets. Because I believe young people's enthusiasm on LGE's innovative handsets will spread out continusously.
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SMS (Short Message Service) Usage Patterns of Korean People :: 2008/08/05 14:01
I posted 'Catalyst for Growth of SMS Usage' in last April. I found an interesting article regarding the post.
Recently, K Research, a research firm specialized in IT & mobile, conducted a survey about SMS usage patterns of Korean people. There was a question about how to use SMS and very interesting result was identified. The question is "How do you send SMS?" You guys might think that most of people send SMS using mobile handsets. HOWEVER, 40 percent of Korean people use instant messenger for sending SMS.
How do you send SMS? (Sample : 3,086)
Age
By Instant Messenger
By Mobile Handset
Middle School Students
13.4%
86.6%
High School Students
10.9%
89.1%
20 ~ 24 yrs
17.9%
82.1%
25 ~ 29 yrs
30.0%
70.0%
30 ~ 39 yrs
45.7%
54.3%
40 ~ 49 yrs
48.9%
51.1%
50 ~ 64 yrs
43.7%
56.3%
Total
42.9%
57.1%
Most of young people under 29 years old prefer mobile handset to instant messenger to send SMS. Because they usually stay in school or enjoy wlaking on street. However, many people over 30 years old use instant messenger such as NateOn for sending SMS. Those people usually stay in office and work in front of computer. When they get a message or want to send a message, it is very convenient to use the instant messenger on computer.
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