Research and Markets: South Korea's $5.1 Billion Mobile Data Market Is Expected To Nearly

South Korea: Smartphones to Drive Revenue Growth for Network Operators offers a precise profile of the country's telecommunications, media, and technology sectors based on proprietary data from our research in the market. It provides detailed competitive analysis of both the fixed and mobile sectors, tracks the market shares of technologies and services, and monitors the introduction and spread of new technologies.

The increased proliferation of smartphone

"With the increased proliferation of smartphone, such as the iPhone (News - Alert),consumer habits are quickly changing in South Korea," notes Tae-hyung Kim, Senior Analyst at Pyramid. "The rising adoption of smartphones and the accompanying increase in demand for mobile data access has put the issue of network upgrades front and center for mobile operators."

"While rushing into LTE has some advantages, such as achieving technological leader status, demand for LTE will be limited until there is a large enough portfolio of handsets that have been tested and proved in the market," Kim explains. "This is especially the case in markets, such as South Korea, where demand for mobile broadband via laptops is low. Instead, improving the capacity of the WCDMA network by upgrading to HSPA+, as well as expanding the network coverage to 2G levels will prove to be far more beneficial."

The South Korean telecom market to generate $32

We expect the South Korean telecom market to generate $32.7bn in service revenue, including pay-TV, in 2010, up 16% from 2009. It is a mature market in almost all aspects with high adoption of mobile, fixed and pay-TV services. One service area in which South Korea does lag, particularly when compared with Japan often viewed as South Koreas closest peer is mobile data services. With the increased proliferation of smartphones such as the iPhone, consumer habits are quickly changing and, going forward, we expect South Koreas $5.1bn mobile data market to nearly double in size, generating $9.0bn by 2015. Another growth segment is the VoIP market. As operators promote bundles that combine VoIP with broadband, pay-TV and even mobile voice with discounts as high as 20%, consumers are quickly dropping their PSTN lines in favor of VoIP. Going forward, we expect VoIP to be the fastest-growing area in South Korea, with a CAGR of 17.3% during the next five years. Over the next five years, we expect South Koreas telecom market to generate a cumulative $213bn.