Mobile Korea

This August, I am speaking at iMobicon 2007 on the landscape of 'Korean Social Networking and Mobile TV'. If you are not familiar with iMobicon, it is an international conference organized by Informa only focuing on Korean Mobile industry.
Most major mobile related companies will participate such as SK Telecom, KTF,Cyworld and many more.

You can find some of the most fascinating stories and dynamics of Korean mobile industry.Any one thinking of participating in iMobicon, I am happy to keep in touch in advance.

Story: Husband come back to Korea after 2 years and his wife and son come to airport to meet him. His wife tries to jump into husband but..



Video call is not a dream any more in Korea

Have you ever dreamed calling your girl friend with seeing her face?
If yes, Your dream has already came true in Korea!

Now Koreans can use video conversation service.

You can see where she is, what she does and whom she meets by just calling her.
As you can see in video clip, picture quality is quite good and it operates both inside and outside.

Video call users gradually increase and are being common for Koreans through 3.5G HSDPA network.


But, be careful not to show her your 'extra' girl with video call

Prada Phone has made its market debut in Korea about a month ago. I was also one of the people who were expecting it to come and recently I found an interesting article on Prada phone.

In Korea, it was provided initially by LG Telecom (No 3 Player in Korea with Market share of 17%. The leading player SK Telecom has 50% of M/S and KTF the 2nd Player around 33%) followed by SK Telecom. It is regarded by many industry analysts that LG Telecom is making the best use of its sister company, LG Electronics who developed Prada phone with Prada.

According to the market statistics released by LG Telecom, most of the Prada Phone was bought by the group who were in their 20s and 30s. 80% of the Prada Phone sold since its debut were in this group and 40s group followed who accounted 11%.

The ratio between the sexes was Male (60%) and Female (40%). It can be explained that most of the early adopter were male dominated group. But the report said that the Female customers were rising sharply these days.

Since its launch in May, 25,000 Prada phone has been sold for the period less than a month. LG Telecom and SK Telecom both said that they are now selling more than 1,000 units per day. LG Electronics expects that the total sales target of 200,000 this year looks like an easily achievable goal.

To keep its luxurious image, LG Electronics plays strict marketing strategies and hence can not see the advertisement in the main advertisement medium. Instead they are focusing heavily on ‘Celebrity Marketing’ and many of the Top celebrities were invited to use the Prada Phone including Sophie Marceau of France and Jiwoo Choi of Korea.

Have you ever regret after missing your favourite TV programme while you were stuck in the heavy traffic? Have you ever supposed it would be much better if you have your own TV and thus not fighting for the TV with your brother or sister?

If yes, here is good news. As long as you possess you can watch TV with mobile phone.

There are mainly two different kinds in Korea but this video demonstrates the streaming type. The newly rolled out HSDPA technology (called SHOW or 3G+) helps to upgrade the service quality significantly.

Cyworld, Korean based social networking service, is the one of the most successful ones in the world. In the past, PC and proper internet access were required to use Cyworld. However, today’s cutting edge mobile technology actually extends its reach to everyone’s pocket. In other words, we can ubiquitously access to Cyworld with our mobile phone. No more boundaries exist between wired and wireless services.

I uploaded a picture to my cyworld through my PC and checked it through my mobile phone.

This video clip is the moment at which Norwegian journalists sang a song to thank me for helping themselves during a study trip.

The Norwegian Journalist group has visited Korea for 5 days to learn and experience in the advanced TMT (Technology/media/telecom) sector. I organized the whole trip for them and also gave a brief lecture to make them understand easily at the beginning of the trip. Keeping the schedule, they were very interested in and satisfied with experiences and lessons especially in the developed Korean mobile skills and business system they got during the trip. It was an absolutely fantastic work and made me excited because this is one of the reasons why I set up my company, Veyond.

Actually, even though the group already knew Korea is one of the leading countries in the TMT sector and really wanted to visit, they had no connection in Korea to make a schedule. They looked for someone who can introduce the Korean TMT sector and fortunately found me at a webpage of the wireless world forum in which I was a guest speaker about Korean mobile.

While they discussed the trip with me by email, I made sure them they found a perfect partner in Korea and tried to give them valuable experiences as much as possible in the short period. The schedule was set up to visit media, telecom companies and some exhibition places. Also it provided some chances for Korean cultures such as a musical, attraction, and shopping mall. Thanks to both sides’ efforts, the trip was successful and there were a lot of interests more than I expected wherever they visited. Due to unforgettable memory, we still have a good relationship.

I strongly believe that there are lots of people who are interested in Korea TMT sector. If there is any opportunity later, I hope to help them again and give them something more than just valuable.

Cyworld, which is a Korean social network site, has been introduced on an American university text book published in this February as a world wide famous social online community service.

The name of the book is “Information Systems Today : Managing in the Digital World” published by the Prentice Hall. This book is used to deliver information of general digital economy systems and its new trends to US students majoring in Economics and Business Management.

On this book, Cyworld is evaluated as an online community service that has created a new economy system via social network same as MySpace in US.

GSM Association goes with KTF’s mobile payment service


A mobile payment service proposed by Korean operator KTF is uniting the world's leading service providers. The GSM Association announced at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on the 13th that it will launch a“Pay-Buy Mobile Initiative”as suggested by the Korean mobile operator. The GSM Association comprises about 888 member companies, including service providers, equipment and terminal manufacturers.

Once the agreement comes into force, consumers can purchase goods and services anywhere in the world using their mobile payment enabled handsets. The mobile payments will be made using a Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) / Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC) card in the phone and contactless Near Field Communications (NFC) technology. Fourteen mobile operators including KTF, Cingular Wireless, China Mobile, and NTT DoCoMo are participating in the initiative.

KTF will lead the initiative and is planning to conduct an end-to-end trial in Korea within this year. In addition, LG Electronics will provide handsets for the initial trial in Korea and Mastercard will also take part. Last year, the GSM Association suggested the global application of NFC, the technology used to link mobile devices to payment and contactless systems. Robert Conway, president of the GSM Association said: “Through the KTF led Pay-Buy Mobile Initiative, users will benefit from the ability to purchase items in a secure and convenient way from the comfort of their own mobile phones.”