Many people from all over the world claim that Korea is the most strong player in Mobile TV. True. But by what means?

If we look at the numbers of who use mobile TV in Korea, the answer is ‘YES’. (Now more than 7 million people watch mobile TV in Korea). From the point of profitable business, Korea still has long way to go. Despite the fact that mobile TV exists for more than two years in Korea, specific conditions of the Korean market hinder its development to full potential.

One simple explanation for this can be the putting ‘Avoidable Efforts’. For example in Korea MNOs such as SK Telecom are competing against broadcasting companies such as KBS, MBC, SBS and more. This results not only in two competing standards and revenue models the subscription based S-DMB vs. the advertisement based T-DMB but also in the fact that some contents are only available for one of the respective standards. (Unfortunately Korean Regulatory bodies are divided to two entity, Telecom Committee and Broadcasting Committee. Due to this current condition, each side are making strong tension on the ownership of ‘Killer Contents. We will try to elaborate this during our forthcoming report on ‘Mobile TV’.)

Secondly SK Telecom nowadays is not sure which standard it should support in the future, either S-DMB or HSDPA or another new technology standard such as Mobile Wimax (which is known in Korea as WiBro). Despite a solid user base and revenues S-DMB is quite far away from reaching break even. So MNOs should wisely decide how they can optimize their products Portfolio using different technology standard in order to make the best use of Mobile TV. Actually Mobile TV has very broad definition, and from the customer perspective they do not care what standard they use say DMB, WiBro, HSDPA, Streaming Technology. It is all about providing the most desirable customer experience to the customers.

Another reason why mobile TV is not more successful than now in Korea is Koreans’ affinity to technology and gadgets. On the one hand one could argue that mobile TV is popular in Korea because of this affinity but on the other hand there are various substitutes which can satisfy similar needs. For example we have so called portable media players (PMP), which are comparable to a very small portable PC. People use these PMPs to watch TV programs they have recorded the day before on their HDD drive. So while some factors such as PMP players may not be applicable to Western markets, MNOs and broadcasters should try to avoid cannibalization and ruinous competition in order to fully exploit opportunities in mobile TV business.

Based on requests we receive and also monitoring global media one area of huge interest is mobile TV. In most parts of the world it is a feature soon to be introduced by broadcasters or MNO’s, e.g. BBC and Channel 4 have recently announced to offer mobile TV in the upcoming year.

In order to build a strong value proposition as well as a solid business model we strongly believe that interested parties should utilize the know-how gathered on the Korean mobile TV market. In Korea mobile TV has been present for about 2 years and according to Berg Insight Japan and Korea account for approx. 78% of the world’s mobile TV viewers.

Currently we are working on a report focusing on the business side of mobile TV, which will highlight the lessons learnt from the Korean market. It will soon be published and will be available as a free download after registration on our website.

T-DMB (Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) Phone meets the golden age. In second quarter, the sales of T-DMB Phone increased about 3.4% comparing to first quarter.

That is interesting results because total number of 3G service phone user keep increasing and KTF, one of MNO in Korea, focus their capability on 3G services such as Video call.
However, most of T-DMB phone is concentrated on 2G service!

KTF tries to advertise the diverse function of 3G service.
By contrast, SKT and LGT, MNO in Korea focusing their ability on 2G service, promote their 2G service with excellent design and T-DMB service. Prada Phone is a good example.

Some experts said there will be keen competition between 3G and 2G service soon. It is very hard to estimate how situation will develop because this competition has never happened before.

If you concentrate your attention on how Korean TMT market is changed, you can get some insights about how your home country will be changed.