60 percent of Korean Internet users preferred smartphones to PCs or tablets. (image: Kobiz Media / Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, July 3 (Korea Bizwire) – Korea has been picked as a “Mobile First” nation, with a significant number of smartphone users taking advantage of their mobile devices for Internet searches, online purchases and watching videos.
According to Google’s “Consumer Barometer” analyzing internet usage patterns across the globe, 60 percent of Korean Internet users preferred smartphones to PCs or tablets. Also, 33 percent of Koreans used Internet equally via smartphones and PCs or tablets, while only 6 percent connected to the Internet more often via PCs or tablets.
Among Koreans aged 18 to 54, smartphones are used across all age groups, and among smartphone users, 94 percent were “established” users with more than 12 months experience.
According to the report, a broad range of online activities are carried out on a smartphone as least as often as a computer in Korea. The most frequent activities with smartphones included surfing the internet with search engines (86%), using SNS (50%), watching videos (31%), searching product information (58%), and accessing maps (54%).
In the report, five out of the top ten countries with the highest smartphone distribution rates are located in the Asia-Pacific region, and Korea topped them when it comes to the percentage of consumers who use mobile devices to go online at least once a week (88%), beating out second-place China.
Meanwhile, reflecting Korean patterns of smartphone usage, Korea’s mobile shopping industry logged a sharp increase of 126 percent last year to collect 14.87 trillion in revenue. Total revenues in the online shopping industry increased to 45.3 trillion won, up 17.7 percent from 2013.
By Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
