Key ICT Information

• In 2001, over 60% of households and all schools were connected to broadband internet.
• Korea is also ahead of other countries in internet use; internet banking is being used by more than 14 million people (June 2002) and online trading covers 63.3% of all stock trading (March 2002).
• Investment in information technology has drastically increased to $40 billion in 2001 from $5.75 billion in 1990 (NCA, 2002[a]).
• The number of internet users was only 1.6M in 1997, but increased to 3.1M in 1998, 10.8M in 1999, 19M in 2000, and reached up to 24.4M (56.6% of the population aged 7 and above) at the end of 2001 (KRNIC, 2002).
• The number of households connected to broadband internet was only 10,000 in 1998, but it increased to 300,000 in 1999, 4M in 2000, 7.8M in 2001, and 9.2M in June of 2002 (64% of all households).
• Regarding telecommunications, Korea entered into a matured stage with 57 telephone lines and 61 mobile service subscribers per 100 persons in 2001.
• The number of PCs per 100 people is 25, which means Korea is ahead of Italy (19) and Spain (17).

e-Government

• The progress of e-government service in Korea was ranked at 15th among 190 countries by a UN report (UN, 2002), and e-commerce readiness was ranked at 21st among 60 countries by a survey from the Economist (Economist, 2002).
• Notable achievements include the KIPOnet, which promoted online applications for patents - up to 81.4% of the total applications with reduced examination time by more than 6 months (NCA, 2002[c]).
• The Customs Administration Information System, launched in 1994 to streamline customs administration and reduce logistic costs in import and export procedures, is currently being used by all the trading companies and is connected to all the related institutions.
• The One-stop Service System for Export & Import Cargo (PORT-MIS) is another example of service improvement by online transaction and information sharing.
• The number of required documents for port administration has been reduced to 16 from 75, and the processing time decreased to 2 minutes from 2 hours.

e-Commerce

• The size of the e-commerce market in Korea had already surpassed $44 billion in 2000. Through the first three quarters of 2001, the total e-commerce market size was $63.7 billion with $18.7 billion in the first quarter, $20.5 billion in the second quarter, and $24.5 billion in the third.

B2B

• According to the statistics survey on the e-commerce industry for the third quarter of 2001, B2B e-commerce's market size was estimated to be around $24 billion, which was a dramatic increase from the previous year.
• Specifically, the buyer-centered trading values took up 76.5% of the total with $19 billion.

B2C

• As of March 2002, there are 2,334 on-line shopping malls in Korea. The total number of internet shopping malls as of the end of 2001 was 2,166, a 15% increase from 1,900 at the end of 2000. The amount of B2C trading in on-line shopping malls, as of March 2002, reached $321 million.

B2G

• The total B2G trading values on the third quarter of 2001 was $1.21 billion, accounting for 37 central government ministries and agencies and 19 local governments.
• It was estimated that the central government traded $1.198 billion using B2G e-commerce, most of which was made through the National Procurement Service.
• Procurement operations, partially performed using EDI, have been expanded to 500 items since 2001.

Financing Services

• The number of Internet banking users reached 14.5M in June 2002, a doubling increase from 7.4M in June 2001.
• The number of securities companies offering online trading services increased from 27 in 1999 to 38 as of November 2001, and the online stock market is mainly centered on large securities companies.

Mobile e-Business

• Though estimations of the size of the domestic mobile e-business market slightly differ by the institutions, it is agreed that the market will grow to $3.5 billion by 2005, starting from $0.9 billion.
• After mobile internet service launched in 1998, the number of subscribers had grown to about 23M as of October 2001 and various kinds of services have been introduced since.
• In February 2001, SK Telecom, the biggest wireless carrier in Korea, had 47% of all mobile internet subscribers and KT Freetel had 24% of the market, while Korea Telecom's 'm.Com' had 4%.
• Venture companies have rushed into the mobile market as content providers and a few have entered foreign markets. The number of registered companies providing mobile digital content had increased from 122 in 2000 to 378 in October 2001.
• Market projections of m-commerce, the number of subscribers in 2000 was 1 million, accounting for only 3% of all mobile service subscribers, but is expected to steadily increase to 19 million or 45% of all mobile service subscribers by 2005.
• In the B2B market of m-commerce, the market is expected to grow to more than 4.3 million subscribers, while the B2C market expects 15.6 million subscribers.

Source: Digital Review for Asia Pacific