Following charts are from the 2009 Korea Communication Market Forecast Report by KT Management Research Labotory, Digieco (www.digieco.co.kr). To see in detail, click the charts.

KT Management Research Labotory forecasted that the Korean communication market size will grow to 308.1 trillion won (appox. 220 billion us dollars)

According to the report,  VoIP subscribers will increase by 8.2 billion and market revenue will increase by 270 billion won (appox. 157 million us dollars).

Everybody in this industry is monitoring the IPTV market closely these days. The subscribers for IPTV were, according to the data from June 2008, around 1.5 million. This chart was drawn based on the actual data from July 2006 to June 2008. It describes two possible scenarios, shown by a orange and a blue line, about the future subscriber base of IPTV in Korea.

To see whether the outcome will result in the blue or orange line I searched for other sources for subscriber base and found that there were 1.6 million subscribers by September 2008. Consequently it seems that the prediction shown by the orange line is more similar to the reality than the blue line so far.

Report also pointed out three changes of paradigm from 2008 Korean communication industry as follows:

1. IT governance changes

2. Government policies for IT industry growth changes

3. Competition dynamics change in Korean communication industry

Report also forecasted that the Korean communication industry will change through convergence of media such as broadcasts, telecom, internet, newspapers especially with the start of Korea Communications Commisions, equivalent to Ofcom in UK,

On Wednesday I posted that I went to the KNP (Korea Netizen Profile) seminar, and here are some statistics from the 2008 KNP Research.

The following chart shows what Koreans use their internet for (To see in detail click the image).

According to the KNP research result, “Email” is the most frequently used web service for Koreans and “Search” is following the next.

Other interesting result is about Korean internet users’ perspective for online advertisement. Following is the result for the question “Why do you click on online advertisement?” (to see in detail, click the image)

Most Koreans click the online advertisements when it looks fun, and also when it contains promotional events. These research results can be a guidance for those who want to publish effective online advertisement on the Korean market.

Here is a full copy of KNP Research Result in Korean. There are other research results about Korean Netizen.

On April, I posted that LG Telecom realeased the mobile full browsing service called OZ. OZ is a mobile internet service that offers full browsing and it costs 6,000 won (about 5 dollars) per month for 1 GB traffic (2,000~4,000 web page views).  On the 28th of October this year LG Telecom announced that the subscribers of OZ were more than 400 thousand, about 6% of their subscribers, since it was launched in April. So does OZ make significant financial results for LG Telecom? Let’s look at the ARPU development of LG Telecom and their competitors and see how they are doing.

Here are each MNO’s ARPU Development from 2007 2Q to 2008 3Q.

As you can see, MNO’s ARPU have not been increased, they have in fact decreased a little bit overall. In the case of LG Telecom, ARPU of 2008 3Q has been decreased by 2.2% from previous quarter and 3.4% from previous year.

Let’s look at the Data ARPU development which is directly related to OZ.

Data ARPU includes SMS, mobile internet, mobile contents and so on. Korean MNOs reduced the SMS prices by 33% from January 2008. SK Telecom’s Data ARPU in 2008 has been decreased mostly due to the SMS price reduction. KTF and LG Telecom’s Data ARPU have instead shown increased figures in 2008. In the case of KTF, the increasing subscriber base for SHOW (3G service of KTF) is the main factor for the improving Data ARPU. LG Telecom’s Data revenue of 2008 3Q was 80.6 billion won, which is an upturn by 0.6% from previous quarter and 7.5% from previous year. As LG Telecom said that OZ subscriber’s Data ARPU is 1.7 times more than other subscribers, the expansion of OZ subscribers would be the main factor to increase LG Telecom’s Data revenue. It seems that OZ made some improvement in revenues for LG Telecom. However offering just full browsing is not enough.

The total number of subscribers for OZ are increasing but the monthly net increase in OZ subscribers are in fact decreasing. I think this points out that LG Telecom needs to provide more than just full browsing, and that would be to focus on the CONTENTS that people want to consume and use. If those are not provided, LG Telecom’s OZ might just be a temporary fad for Koreans.