mTrends - mobile media lifestyle trends - m-trends.org

As mentioned in my previous post, last week I spent a couple of days in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, for the Digital Leaders Forum at CHEIL Worldwide HQ (view the presentation I did on Mobile Digital Storytelling).

It is well-known that South Korea - together with Japan - has one of the most advanced mobile cultures in the world, it was thus a privilige to have a closer look on anything mobile there.

One of the first real mobile beahviour differences I noticed was that most people waiting for the bus in Seoul watch their mobile phone screens, opposed to having the device to their ears while in a phone conversation. People are totally immersed consuming digital media whenever possible on their mobile phones in Seoul.

Some statistics on South Korea’s mobile internet applications & services consumption usage. For more detailed statistics and insights, I recommend the Digital Korea book, authored by Tomi Ahonen & Jim O’Reilly.

- The country has 44.5 million mobile subscribers in total, or a 90.7% penetration rate (May 2008). MNO’s are SK Telecom (22.5 million subscribers), KTF (14 million subscribers) and LG Telecom (8 million subscribers).

- 63 percent of South Koreans make payments using their cell phones.

- Over 30 percent of South Korean students send over 100 text messages a day (source: Korea Times, February 9, 2006).

- Average amount of daily consumption of DMB digital TV on cell phones in South Korea was 129 minutes per day (source: MIC January 2007)

- Nearly 100% of South Koreans buy ringtones.

- Almost 80 percent of South Korea’s households have broadband access, fostering active online interactions.

- In 2006, 57 percent of South Korea’s music sales were digital

- 37 percent of South Koreans download cell phone games

- Naver is the most popular search portal in South Korea (also on the mobile phone). According to comScore, Naver received 2 billion queries in August 2007, accounting for over 70% of all search queries in Korea, and making it the fifth most used search engine in the world (!), following Google search, Yahoo!, Baidu, and MSN. Note that Google Inc. has recently snapped up South Korean blogging software company Tatter and Company (TNC) in a bid to expand the Internet search leader’s reach in Asia.

(image courtesy of LG Telecom)

Some of the apps/services that most surprised me are the Polygraph which is a mobile lie detector allowing South Korean girls to test if their boyfriends are telling them the truth about their where-abouts etc. Seems stupid but South Korean teenagers just love the service, wether you want to play with it or just take it serious…

Another interesting mobile service is the Navi Call Taxi Service. Calling a cab to specific number, and it knows where you are As to make the taxi experience more safe for young women, the service sends a text message to the parents and/or friends with the name and number of the taxi and its location. Ain’t that cool? Wondering when we get such a service over here in Europe and US.

You can view both services demonstrated and explained here below in a video produced by Andrew Berglund (Global Interactive Executive Creative Director at Cheil Worldwide) called “A Day in The Life of a Mobile Phone in Seoul” - An Interactive Exploration of Marketing Technology among the YMCs (Young-Minded Consumer) in South Korea.The video was originally shown in a workshop at Cannes Lions 2008.

The video gives a great overview and insight on mobile phone usage and behaviour of YMCs living in the modern digital metropolis of Seoul. How today’s youth consumer is making the mobile device an extension of his/her existence - utilising a wide spectrum of mobile services from video calls, SMS, MMS, vlogging/blogging, internet, mobile TV broadcast, digital multi-media broadcast, m (mobile)-commerce, m-banking, m-mags, m-movies and other dynamic multi-sensory social content.

You can view Part 1 soon here on YouTube’s  iCheil’s Channel.

The big question to me is how countries like South Korea and Japan, in let’s say 5 years from now, will be able to sustain their closed ecosystem model in a growing global mobile market heading towards an open ecosystem ecomomy with new industry players applying different business models to connect the physical world with the internet using the mobile phone.

They have the choice to become an isolated island in such an economy or open up and - why not - become an industry leader on a global scale using the knowledge and experience they have acquired from the sucessful mobile applications and services models they have applied in their home countries.

Here’s my Flickr set of my trip to Seoul.

For my Korean readers, there’s an interview with me in the Maeil Business Newspaper.