A graph shows the average time a South Korean spends on YouTube per month in this photo provided by mobile market research firm WiseappㆍRetailㆍGoods. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, June 1 (Korea Bizwire) –The video-sharing app YouTube accounts for a staggering one-third of the time South Koreans spend on their smartphones, cementing Google’s powerful presence in the country’s mobile market through its singular hit platform.
According to app analytics firm Wiseapp, South Korean smartphone users spent 33.6% of their total device usage, or over 10.2 billion minutes, on YouTube in April. That dwarfed the 10.7% for the second-ranked KakaoTalk messaging app.
Instagram ranked third at 6.9% of total usage, followed by the Naver portal (6.6%), TikTok (2%), Naver Webtoon (1.6%) and Twitter, now called X (1.6%). The top 10 apps accounted for nearly 67% of all smartphone activity.
Breaking it down by company, Google’s YouTube alone commanded a 33.6% share. KakaoTalk’s parent company Kakao had a 13.7% share across its suite of lifestyle apps like payments and maps. Naver’s collection of services garnered an 11.4% share, while Meta’s Instagram and Facebook comprised 7.7%.
“While Naver and Kakao have secured user engagement through their diverse daily apps, Google has an unrivaled position in Korea’s app market solely through YouTube,” said one industry analyst, who called YouTube a “content infrastructure” set apart from legacy platforms.
Major firms across commerce, media and other sectors are increasingly integrating YouTube into their own services to capitalize on its powerful ability to attract users, the analyst added.
A separate government survey of 2,000 adults last December found YouTube was the most time-consuming content platform at 30.3% of weekly viewing, ahead of streaming video at 21.3% and traditional TV at 18.6%.
Viewers flock to YouTube not just for entertainment, but also educational content, income opportunities and other information needs, analysts say, highlighting the diversity of the global video behemoth’s offerings.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
