In this file photo taken on March 6, 2020, a foreign citizen wearing gloves uses a smartphone at an immigration office in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Oct. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans are spending more time on mobile apps, with their average daily usage hours of such apps breaking the five hour mark in the third quarter of this year for the first time in history, an industry tracker said.
The number of app downloads worldwide totaled 36 billion in the third quarter of this year, with the amount of app-related spending estimated at $34 billion, with both setting new quarterly records, according to a report released by App Annie.
In terms of the average daily usage hours of mobile apps by country, South Korea ranked third at five hours, up from 4.8 hours in the second quarter of this year.
Indonesia ranked first at 5.5 hours, followed by Brazil at 5.4 hours. Following Korea were India, Mexico and Japan at 4.8 hours each.
The app most downloaded in South Korea in the third quarter of this year was the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s COOV, followed by online secondhand marketplace Danggeun Market and TikTok.
Food delivery platform Coupang Eats, health insurance-related app The Health Insurance and online meeting app Zoom Cloud Meetings were positioned in top ten, reflecting daily habits of the COVID-19 era.
In the category of app-related spending, a variety of content apps such as YouTube, local OTT service Watcha and Naver Webtoon were ranked near the top.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
