FierceWireless Editor Brian Dolan recently caught up with Korea Telecom
Freetel's (KTF) director and head of global strategy Byungki Oh to
discuss the GSM Association's Mobile Innovation Program Awards, trends
in the Korean wireless industry and what it takes to make an impact on
that country's market. KTF is the second largest operator in Korea with
more than 13 million subscribers and an HSPA network that Oh says
covers 99 percent of the nation's population. Oh says KTF has 1.53
million HSPA users.
FierceWireless: Which applications do well in the Korean market?
What are some of the trends you are seeing in Asia? I would guess
mobile music is popular.
Oh: Mobile music is a big one. In Korea, the mobile music
industry has clearly succeeded over online music. KTF and SK Telecom
have each launched an MP3, ringtone and ringback services. Mobile makes
up more than half of the total music industry in Korea, I'd say it
makes up about 70 percent of total music industry and revenues. So the
other types of distribution offline are very small. And the online
portals that provide MP3s, they cannot really measure up to the mobile
operators' market share in music.
FierceWireless: What about mobile financial services?
Oh: Mobile commerce is another good one. We started with mobile
commerce and also mobile banking. Micropayments came soon after, but
then we started putting credit cards into contactless chips in the
phones. We are currently working on this project that uses near-field
communications. We will be demonstrating this technology at Macau (GSMA
Asia.) We are currently conducting trials with Mastercard for these
credit card NFC services in Korea.
