This presentation (August, 2012) provides a great overview of the South Korean social media and internet landscape.

1. South Korean Social Media
Fast Facts
August 2012

2. [Fast Facts
[ South Korea is one of the most connected nations in the world with high
broadband penetration rates and a tech savvy population. She has the
world’s fastest average Internet connection speed at 2,202 Kbps. This is
almost four times the world's average and is faster than Great Britain,
Turkey, Spain and Australia combined! It is therefore not surprising that
she has approximately 39 million internet users and boasts one the
Asia’s highest internet penetration rates of 80.9%.
1
Source:
h*p://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm#asia
[ Fast Facts

3. [Fast Facts
[South Korea has a high world Internet penetration rate of 82.7% in
2011, The Internet has a higher status for many Koreans than it does
in the West.
2
Source:
www.internetworldstats.com/top25.htm
[ Fast Facts

4. [Fast Facts
[Most internet users access the Internet at least once a day, spending
an average of 14.7 hours weekly with almost half of this group
(48.9%) spending more than 14 hours or more.
People mainly access the Internet from home, followed by at work.
We also found that the Internet is mainly used for getting information
or data followed by engaging in leisure activities.
3
Source:
Korea
Communica=ons
Commission
and
the
Korea
Internet
&
Security
Agency
(KISA)
[ Fast Facts

5. [3G Fast Facts
[Gender ratios for internet usage in South Korea are relatively even. Out
of the total number of internet uses, men make up 57.7% and women
make up 42.3%.
4
Source:
www.
eMarketer.com
[ Fast Facts

6. [3G Fast Facts
[60% of internet users fall between 25 and 44 years of age. Significantly,
internet users aged between 55-64 make up only 4.6% of internet users.
5
Source:
www.
eMarketer.com
[ Fast Facts

7. [3G Fast Facts
[79.5% of workers in Korea use the Internet and the occupations are
broken down into these as follows, professionals/managers, office
workers, service/sales, production workers, students and housewives.
6
Source:
www.
eMarketer.com
[ Fast Facts

8. [3G Fast Facts
[College graduates are the heaviest users of Internet followed by high
school graduates, middle school graduates and elementary and below.
7
Source:
www.
eMarketer.com
[ Fast Facts

9. [3G Fast Facts
[Korea's high internet penetration rate can be attributed to the
government's strong infrastructural support. The rapid increase of
internet users over the past ten years is evidence for that. The
government is constantly looking to upgrade the wireless network and
have put plans in place to increase the speed of internet connection of
every household.
8
Source:
isis.kisa.or.kr/eng/
[3G Fast Facts

10. Social Media and Search Facts

11. [Social Media Facts
[What is the Social Media landscape in South Korea
9 [ Social Media Facts

12. [Social Media Facts
[ The South Korean social media use a multitude and array of digital tools
and channels for their online activities. Notable mentions in the activities
shown below are the use of SNS and online trade. Recent figures reveal
that twitter users in Korea have exceeded 3 million and 67% of Korean
CEOs believe that "SNS will change the way of communication", it is also
the most used channel to communicate with employees and customers
among Korean CEOs.
10
Source:
www.asiadigitalmap.com/2011/03/korea-­‐weekly-­‐social-­‐media-­‐news-­‐update-­‐7/
[Social Media Facts

13. [Blog Facts
[ world, second only to China.
South Korea is home to one of the largest blogging communities in the
Popular blog hosting sites include:
1. Naver Blogs
2. Daum blogs
3. Egloos
4. Blogin
5. Tistory
6. Textcube
7. Yahoo!Korea blog
11
Source:
globalwebindex.net/thinking/the-­‐global-­‐state-­‐of-­‐social-­‐media-­‐in-­‐2011/
[ Blog Facts

14. [Microblogging Facts
[ Twitter has had a phenomenal impact in South Korea with users having
an active user rate two times higher than the world average. As of
January 19, 2011, Twitter has expanded to offer a Korean language
service, making Korean the seventh language available for support on
Twitter.
12
Source:
www.asiadigitalmap.com
[ Microblogging Facts

15. [Microblogging Facts
[ me2DAY - Owned by Naver. Popularly dubbed as the “Twitter of South
Korea”, me2DAY is popular among South Korean celebrities including G-
Dragon from Big Bang and Sandara Park from 2NE1.
As of September 25, 2011, the number of me2day users has outstripped
the number of domestic Facebook and Twitter users.
13
Source:
koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/ar=cle/ar=cle.aspx?aid=2918885
[ Microblogging Facts

16. [Facebook Facts
[ Within South Korea, Facebook’s prominence lags behind Cyworld with
only slightly more than 4 million users. The Facebook penetration of the
South Korean online population lies at 10.17%.
Recently in August 2011, Facebook in Korea experienced the highest
number of monthly visitors to the site and has beaten Cyworld for the
first time.
14
Source:
The
Korea
Times,
October
7,
2011
[ Facebook Facts

17. [Facebook Facts
[ Cyworld is South Korea's leading social networking community with 25
million members since its inception in 1999. It functions as a hybrid
between a blog and a personal homepage, and the subscribers’
personal home pages is referred to as ‘minihompy’.
Cyworld users are very diverse and range anywhere from elementary
students to middle-aged adults. However, recently, some people are
getting bored of Cyworld and do not bother updating their sites. Some
are making the switch to Facebook.
15
Source:
The
Korea
Times,
October
7,
2011
[ Facebook Facts

18. [ Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) / Forums Facts
[ Daum Agora - A popular web portal in South Korea. Includes a
popular free web-based e-mail, messaging service, forums, shopping
and news. The popularity of Daum stems from the range of services it
offers, but also from the fact that it was the first South Korean web
portal of significant size.
DC Inside - DC Inside is frequently noted under the initiali, DC, and it
functions as an Internet forum. It has now met broad notoriety in South
Korea due to its unique nature.
16
Source:
Wikipedia
[ BBS Facts

19. [Video Sharing Facts
[ Youtube - The South Korean population uses mainly the Youtube, a
video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view
videos.
Naver Video- There are other alternative channels that South Koreans
use as well such as Naver video which belongs to Naver.
17
Source:
www.koreacrunch.com
[ Video Sharing Facts

20. [Instant Messenger Facts
[ South Koreans use an array of instant messaging tools such as NateOn,
KakaoTalk, Buddybuddy, Sayclub Tachy and MSN Messenger. Outside
of work, many teenagers prefer to use SMS and instant messaging to
communicate.
The two most used services are:
• NateOn
• Kakao Talk
18
Source:
Email
for
the
old,
5
October
2011
[ IM Facts

21. [Search Engine Facts
[Popularly referred to as the “Google of Korea”, Naver is run by NHNCorp
in South Korea. Using Naver tends to give more accurate Korean data
and results found are more refined.
The breakdown of the statistics as of
September 2011 are:"
1. Naver - 63.5%"
2. Google - 29.67%"
3. Daum - 3.41%"
4. Yahoo!Korea - 2.52%"
5. Nate - 0.53%
19
Source:
Wikipedia
[Search Engine Facts

22. E-commerce Facts

23. [E-commerce Facts
[ E-commerce is majorly popular in South Korea and according to a study
of visitor traffic by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
In terms of traffic volume, “comprehensive” online malls that sold a wide
range of products such as GMarket and Auction and the online arms of
brick-and-mortar retailers such as Lotte and Shinsegae Mall, were found
to host the largest share with an average of 21.85 million visitors per
month.
20
Source:
koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/ar=cle/ar=cle.aspx?aid=2929296
[ E-commerce Facts

24. [E-commerce Facts
[ In the second quarter of 2011, “Credit Card” was the most used
payment option in B2C E-Commerce in South Korea, accounting for
more than 70% of market value.
21 [ E-commerce Facts
Source:
www.ystats.com/uploads/report_abstracts/882.pdf?PHPSESSID=d79f3c1d7b6c91060d3bd07c19d0b388

25. Mobile Facts

26. [Mobile Facts
[Asia-Pacific holds 56% of the worldwide mobile users globally. The
evolving nature of mobile phones and the high adoption rate of mobile
phone plans in Asia have made mobile devices a key influence in
molding the digital landscape.
South Korea is again at the forefront of this change.
22
Source:
KISA
[ Mobile Facts

27. [Mobile Facts
[With a dense and world class infrastructure of wireless networks, the
country which global mobile phone powerhouses such as Samsung
Electronics and LG Electronics and world most technologically savvy
populations call home has been at the forefront of such a shift. Figures
show that South Korea has the highest Mobile Phone Use Penetration
in Asia-Pacific
23
Source:
Starcom
MediaVest
Group,
July
2011
[ Mobile Facts

28. [Mobile Facts
[Mobile operators in South Korea have provided a wide variety of services to
users on the mobile Internet platform. Services that allow mobile users to
subscribe and customize services to their liking and to access the Internet
whenever they desire, have been introduced. These services are not only
accessible through mobile terminals but also through other devices such as
PDAs and PCs.
24
Source:
Starcom
MediaVest
Group,
July
2011
[ Mobile Facts

29. [Mobile Facts
[South Korea has also been a key driving force in the increase in smart
phone shipments to Asia. LG and Samsung have been investing heavily in
smartphones and increased efforts to market their products within Korea.
25
Source:
Korea
Communica=ons
Commission
as
cited
in
press
release,
March
24,
2011.
[ Mobile Facts

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