A new report has revealed South Koreans are among the most enthusiastic users of online shopping apps, with the average person devoting 90 minutes every month to their use. (Image: Kobiz Media)
SEOUL, Oct. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — A new report has revealed South Koreans are among the most enthusiastic users of online shopping apps, with the average person devoting 90 minutes every month to their use.
The report published by mobile application analytics service App Annie on Thursday showed South Koreans spend 90 minutes on mobile shopping apps on average, the longest length of time spent among the countries mentioned.
South Korea was closely followed by Indonesia, India, Japan and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, where the average monthly time spent on mobile shopping apps surpassed 75 minutes, according to the report.
In comparison, South Koreans on average spent twice as much time as their Australian and French counterparts.
When broken down by the popularity of each app, retail giant E-mart’s mobile app ‘Emart Mall’ turned out to be the most popular, followed by apps for other retailers such as Hyundai H Mall, and Lotte Homeshopping, lotte.com and Home Plus.
“The Asia-Pacific region will lead the growth of the mobile app industry, with the total length of time spend on mobile apps in the world reaching 3.5 trillion hours by 2021. Data will play a crucial role in the shift towards mobile shopping among retailers,” App Annie said.
The findings from the new report fall in line with data released by the South Korean government in August, which revealed that the ratio of mobile shopping to retail sales reached an all-time high in the second quarter of 2017, thanks to the growing number of consumers turning to smartphones and other mobile devices to buy goods.
Purchases made from smartphones and tablets surged 41.5 percent on-year to 9.4 trillion won (US$8.25 billion) between April and June, according to data from Statistics Korea.
Experts believe it’s thanks to a high smartphone penetration rate that mobile shopping has increased sharply as smartphones enable people to shop wherever they are. In addition, shopping malls have been stepping up their promotional efforts targeting smartphone holders, which as a result boosted the mobile shopping industry.
South Korea is among the most wired countries in the world, boasting one of the highest smartphone ownership rates with eight out of 10 people using a smartphone, according to government data.
M.H.Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
