{"id":11045,"date":"2011-11-03T18:11:49","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T18:11:49","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-11-03T18:11:49","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T18:11:49","slug":"Tech-obsessed-Koreans-drive-smartphone-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=11045","title":{"rendered":"Tech-obsessed Koreans drive smartphone boom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Technology-obsessed South Koreans fell in love with the smartphone relatively late, but are making up for lost time at astonishing speed. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The number of smartphone subscribers hit 20.1 million late last week in a country of just under 49 million people – compared to 10 million in March this year and fewer than 500,000 only two years ago. <\/strong><\/p>\n

With free wireless networks and cutting-edge gadgets widely available, users will likely number 30 million in the first half of 2012 and 40 million at the end of next year, said Lee Sang-Hak, director of the Korea Communications Commission’s telecommunications policy planning division. <\/p>\n

“We’ll likely exceed the US in terms of the percentage of smartphone users in the total population early next year,<\/strong>” he told AFP. <\/p>\n

South Koreans got their first taste of Apple’s iPhone only in November 2009, a year or two after the United States and Europe, when regulators dropped restrictions which had largely closed off the local market. <\/p>\n

The iconic device became an instant hit, unnerving Korean cellphone giants like Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics which rushed to roll out competing models. <\/p>\n

Samsung, the world’s second-largest maker of all types of mobile phones after Nokia, unveiled its flagship Galaxy S smartphone series in June 2010.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

In the third quarter of this year it even overtook Apple in the global smartphone market<\/strong>, shipping almost 28 million units compared to 17 million by the US technology giant, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.<\/p>\n

The country’s widespread broadband network also helped drive growth<\/strong>, he said, as existing networks can offer wi-fi services and let smartphone users access the Internet with no extra data charges. <\/p>\n

South Korea is one of the world’s most wired societies, with 95 percent of homes using broadband Internet.<\/strong> It also has the world’s top Internet download speeds, according to a study released by Pando Networks.<\/p>\n

Source AFP<\/em>
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