iPhone Shaking Korean Mobile Market
Two years after the release rumor, last month Apple iPhone was finally introduced to the Korea market. Starting with KT, an exclusive partner for the sale of Apple’s iPhone, the number of iPhone customers almost reached 200,000 in a month. (A KT spokesperson confirmed the sales of iPhone 170,000 as of December 23, and the number of daily sign-ups is between 5,000 and 7,000.)
A month after the debut of iPhone, what has happened to the Korean mobile market?
In Korea, the smartphone market is immature because consumers think that the smartphone is harder to use than a regular mobile phone. The dominance of Microsoft Windows Phone operating system backed by SK Telecom failed to attract buyers because of its poor usability and low performance.
However, the release of iPhone, the most popular smartphone in the world, has an easy, intuitive user interface. The iPhone is changing consumers’ minds about smartphones.
The surge in the iPhone`s popularity has expanded the smartphone market. Samsung, paradoxical as it may seem, is one of the main beneficiaries. Samsung’s newest smartphone, the “T Omnia2″ has sold around 120,000 units since its debut in October. The company’s best-selling smartphone, “T Omnia,” has been sold around 160,000 units in a year.
Consumers are an interest in Android platform-based smartphones, which is scheduled for release early January 2010. According to a recent survey of 1500 industry experts conducted by ROA Group, 54 percent predicted that the Android-powered smartphone will lead Korea’s smartphone market followed by the iPhone.
Further, iPhone has forced Samsung to lower the price of its new smartphone. Because Samsung has reduced the price of its newest smartphones such as “T Omnia 2″ and “OZ Omnia,” customers of SK Telecom and LG Telecom can buy new smartphones at a more affordable price. However, Samsung does not yet offer the same benefit to KT customers.
Along with the iPhone, Korean users can purchase diverse applications through Apple’s App Store, which contains over 100,000 applications. Until now, users have been blocked by mobile operators, so the selection of new applications or services has been limited. Because of the App Store, Korean mobile users are enjoying a new experience without restrictions.
However, Korea’s App Store has fewer applications than similar stores in other countries. For example, Korean users cannot obtain popular mobile games by Korean developers such as Com2us and Gamevil. In Korea, mobile games are available for distribution only after they have been screened and approved by the Game Rating Board. So Apple removed the game category, which is one of the most popular on App Store, to avoid this regulation.
Some Korean users are finding a way to access all of the applications on App Store by creating accounts that do not show them as Korean users. For payment, they use a gift card instead of a credit card.
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It is becoming clear that Android and iPhone will be the eventual winners of the smartphone wars.
We can already see the statistics that show which platforms are rising, and which are failing. The iPhone has shaken up everyone, but the biggest loser is Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.
Although it has previously been popular in Korea, its worldwide market share has now dropped to 7.9%, according to Gartner, and is still falling.
The Windows Mobile platform will not survive. Its licensing model was wrong. It is harder to sell a phone if it runs Windows Mobile than if it runs Android. You know an operating system is dead when the software developers have deserted it, and this has already happened with Windows Mobile. The Microsoft Mobile app store is not expanding (it has less than 2000 apps). It is deserted, and the platform cannot recover. Meanwhile the Android store has quickly grown 20,000 apps, and the iPhone app store has 100,000 apps, and still growing. It should be obvious to everyone which platforms will live and which will not.
Consumers have rejected the old Windows Mobile user interface (UI), designed for a stylus pen, like PDAs of the 1990s that it used to run on. Windows Mobile is unpopular because the iPhone has shown everybody what a smartphone can be. It has made people expect a lot more. People want other platforms to be at least as good and as easy to use as iPhone. The multi-touch interface is also critical for success.