Do you still remember Korea’s IT839 Strategy? The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), the former communications regulator in Korea, had suggested the government driven IT policy introducing and promoting 8 services, building 3 infrastructures, and developing 9 ICT new growth engines. It has successfully transformed Korean IT industry so competitive today until their dissolution with the new government. After that, there seemed no more significant government push for Korean IT.

[IT839 by MIC]

However, the new government comes up with new scheme called 3-3-7. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE)’s new strategy aims to support Korean IT sector to penetrate global market. Providing customized marketing support, they selected 13 items and divided them into three categories: 3 strategic items (DMB, WiBro, E-Government), 3 flagship items (Semiconductor, Display, Wireless) and 7 potential items (RFID/USN, Robot, Network, Software, E-Health, LED, Security).

According to this marketing strategy, MKE will play the significant role to help relevant Korean players in those areas to pioneer global market by hosting IT road show, enhancing government relationships and inviting foreign venture capitals etc.

Its first attempt seems to be already in action. Since the president MB Lee’s comment “Mountainous country like Peru definitely needs WiBro” during the last visit to Peru in November 2008, two governments have maintained highly business oriented relationships each other.

[Korean Delegation led by MKE]

As a result, a new delegation led by MKE composed of 100 people from both public and private sector will be sent on 9th March. They will host ICT road shows at the three hub cities  in Central and Southern America such as Bogota (Columbia), Lima (Peru), Sang Paulo (Brazil). Korea’s leading players in DMB, IPTV and WiBro including Samsung Electronics and Posdata will participate in the event. Mr. Lee Han Chul from KOTRA (Korea’s trade-investment promotion agency) mentioned “This event will open the door for exporting our advanced IT such as WiBro” Mr. Choi Won Joon from Posdata commented “Opportunities for WiBro can be found in big countries without established fixed line IT infrastructure like Brazil.”

What Korean ICT companies are good at is developing new innovative services. On the other hand, what they are not good at so far is marketing & sales in overseas market. At least in IT industry, which is directly related to national IT standard and other significant issues, the government surely has a role to support exporting, for example, a political support to help their private sectors to contact foreign public organizations. It is expected that this new government marketing support scheme re-vitalizes the globalization of Korean ICT sector.

POSDATA, an IT service provider established by Korea’s largest steelmaker POSCO, has announced the commercial launch of its IPTV service after a trial since the end of last year in Los Angeles where there is a high Korean and Asian immigrant population density. At the initial stage of the IPTV service in Los Angeles, the service offerings will be aimed at penetrating Korean and Asian American market that comprises a large proportion of those who has a quiet understanding of Korean culture by providing video-on-demand(VOD) of Korean dramas, movies, entertainment shows, etc. To ensure relable supply of contents POSDATA has cooperated with Korean broadcasting such as MBC, SBS, and KBS and worked with local partners in the United States who have a strong marketing network in the Korean and Asian community. Also, POSDATA has established a joint venture with Celrun, a diversified IP set top box manufacturer, and Acanettv, a digital TV platform provider, in order to facilitate its IPTV operation.

After a successful launch the service offerings will be extended by adding TV shopping malls, online education programs, Karaoke, etc. In addition, POSDATA has planned to combine its IPTV service with Mobile WiMax in which POSDATA has its own core technology. It is believed by POSDATA that Mobile IPTV will bring an edge to its IPTV business in the U.S. market.

I picked 2008 top 10 news at Korean Technology market as follow.

1. WIPI is gone

As I posted already, KCC released the duty of loading WIPI by next  April. This will affect mobile operator as well as mobile device manufacturer. It seems to be more foreign mobile device like iPhone or Blackberry will be launched in Korea next year due to this releasing.

2. Global companies rush to Korea

Beginning from Youtube’s expansion to Korea last January, Myspace and Facebook also extended their business to Korean market this year. Youtube Korea currently ranked top 10 among Korean video site, as well as ranked top 5 during the candlelight vigil on May. Google Korea initially launched localized service as map service in Korea and merged Korean internet company, TNC. EA, I think, is doing business in Korea pretty well and merged Korean game comapny, J2M recently. However, Myspace and Facebook have suffered in Korean market, while Cyworld, the leading SNS in Korea, is having 20 million unique visitor per month.

3. Touch screen phone makes huge hit

Even though Apple’s iPhone didn’t come to Korea, phone having similar feature like iPhone hit the Korean mobile market. Samsung’s Haptic has been sold more than 1.5 million for 8 months and LG’s touch UI phones also have been sold a lot this year inspite of their high prices.

Touch UI appealed to customer becuase of easy interface to use not only phone itself but mobile internet. And now these trends are continuing to interets for smart phone. While KCC recently announced to release the duty of loading WIPI on the mobile phone by next April, the interests for smart phone such as iPhone or Blacberry is getting bigger than before. I guess that touch screen phone wave in mobile market will continue to smart phone next year.

4. IPTV is rising

From last November, the first commercial IPTV service, KT’s Mega TV has began in Korea. Actually many experts thought that it would be difficult to launch commercial IPTV service this year because broadcasting agreement between broadcasts and IPTV providers was facing rough. However Korean government eager to make IPTV successful as Korean next growth engine, other IPTV operators also will provide commercial service by next January.

5. VoIP is becoming the Defacto

I also posted about VoIP market growth in Korea previously. As number portability for VoIP has began, VoIP for home market has increased and is forecasted to grow more next year. As following chart, PSTN subscribers are decreasing and expected to get decrease more and more while people are moving to VoIP.

VoIP will displace PSTN eventually. This threatens KT, the leading player in PSTN market, but gives an opportunity to other players such as LG Powercom and SK Broadband.

2008 Top 10 news is continued at Part 2. Click this here to read.