Smartphones account for 96% of South Korea handset revenues

Smartphones have come to dominate South Korea's mobile industry, accounting for 96% of the revenue generated by overall handset sales in the last 12 months, according to a report by GfK published on Friday.
The market research firm revealed that during that time smartphone sales revenues have soared 129% to US$5.45 billion.
 
"With the country's high Internet connectivity, users have a more compelling reason to upgrade their telecommunication device from the basic feature phone to the more advanced smartphone," Moongen Kwon, general manager at GfK Korea, said in a statement. "Last year, over four in five mobile phones purchased were smartphones, making us a nation with one of the fastest rates of adoption and highest level of penetration in the world."

Indeed, GfK found that 85% of all South Korean handsets sold in the last twelve months were smartphones, a 55% hike from a year previously that equates to 96,000 devices sold per month.
"The smartphone industry will no doubt continue to evolve rapidly," Kwon added. "As the country continues in its quest to achieve full LTE coverage and migrating users to LTE networks, we can foresee competition to further heat up."

January saw a 42% growth in the uptake of LTE handsets, a rise of ten percentage points since December. Manufacturers have responded to this demand, releasing 47 new LTE-capable smartphones since last September, the report noted.

That number is set to grow in the wake of February's Mobile World Congress. ZTE announced that five of the 15 devices it introduced will be LT-enabled; HTC unveiled an LTE version of its new flagship One X smartphone; and Huawei hinted that an LTE version of its Ascend D quad smartphone will be released during the second half of this year.

Meanwhile Apple finally jumped on the LTE bandwagon this week with the latest version of its coveted iPad.
 
Source: Total Telecom 
 

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