Before the smartphone market in South Korea started booming in 2007 there was skepticism about whether there is enough demand from Korean consumers for internet-capable smartphones, given that they can easily have internet access at PC Rooms located within a five-minute walk in any city.

After Samsung “Blackjack”’s great success in both of corporate and consumer smartphone markets and the abolition of the WIPI requirement, which will be active in April 2009, Korean mobile phone operators have been eager to expand their lineup of smartphones, especially including foreign handset makers such as RIM’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone.

One of the most persuasive reasons why mobile phone operators are moving aggressively to boost the smartphone market is that they can increase their ARPU, average revenue per user, through increased mobile data sales. As voice ARPU continues to decline, mobile phone operators try to offset the loss in voice ARPU by increasing the volume of data traffic. For that reason, smartphone becomes recognized as a new growth engine in order for them to boost their ARPU in that it creates a new revenue segment, which is a corporate market and contributes to the growth in data sales.

Bluehole Studio is a Korean MMORPG developer founded in March 2007 by former members of NCsoft’s Lineage II development team. Last week Bluehole officially unveiled its blockbuster MMORPG “TERA” at “Hangame Invitational 2009“, which has been planned to launch its closed beta test in the first half of 2009 in South Korea.

“TERA” has been planned and developed over almost three years, and nearly 32 billion won(roughly 27 millon dollars), including 8.5 billion won funded from Silicon Valley VCs, has been invested in it. According to Bluehole, “TERA” is differentiated from World of Warcraft or Lineage II by

“i.  Dynamic battle system                                                                                       ii.  Next generation graphics                                                                                    iii. Enhanced commodity experience”

“TERA”’s most distinguished feature from other MMORPGs is Non-Targeting battle mode. Gamers are usually pointing their mouse into a monster to hit, slash, and kill. “TERA”’s non-targeting mode, however, allows gamers to directly attack monsters without having to select monsters, which gives gamers more realistic battle environments. Some gamers say, on the other hand, the feature may cause adverse effects, saying that gamers are not familiar with the non-targeting mode so it may be too early to say “TERA” is the next flagship MMORPG. The answer to the question will be clear after the commercial launch of “TERA” in 2010.

SKT has called on the government to reject a plan by KT to merge with its wireless affiliate KTF, saying the merger will create a telecom giant and make it impossible to compete fairly.

From SKT’s point of view:

The KT/KTF merger will make an interactive transition of KT’s dominent position in the fixed-line telephone market into the mobile phone market. Becasue of that, the underlying competition in terms of developing new technologies or products in the telecom market will disappear. Just the competition in marketing will become severe, which means most investment, which is supposed to be made in R&D, is most likely to be used for markeitng purposes.

From KT’s point of view:

As Korean telecom market has been completely saturated, telecom operators are struggling to find a new way of services more appealing to customers, which is in line with the global trend in fixed-mobile convergence. The KT/KTF merger will enable KT to provide various converged products that customers can certainly benefit from at lower price so that the competion in Korean telecom market can lead to cheaper but high-quality services to customers.

We will see how Korea Communications Commission(KCC), the country’s broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, responds to it.