Advanced Internet
South Korea has led the world for years in terms of broadband speeds with verified and tested speeds of up to 32.88Mbps. This information suggests that the South Korean internet user is more than able to interact with complex media and the most popular internet properties in South Korea are local companies. This indicates the high level of technological savvy that exists within the country and those internet marketers wanting to enter the South Korean online industry will need to understand the online behaviour of South Korean internet users. South Korea is officially known as the Republic of Korea and is a sovereign state in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea has an estimate population of 48.9 million and a GDP per capita of $29,835. With more than 39.4 million internet users in South Korea internet penetration is 81%. Approximately 16.8 million internet users have a broadband connection which represents 34.4% of the total population and one of the highest broadband penetration rates in the world.Social Media Preferences
Facebook is not the number one social media site in South Korea with 3.6 million users and 6.7 million unique visitors each month. Cyworld is South Koreas top social network and has 19 million unique visitors every month generating 1.5 billion page views. Top audience interest categories are New Jersey, TV Game Shows, Legal Education, Interior Design and Mid-Atlantic (USA). These interests reveal certain online habits that internet marketers can utilize to create enticing lead generation campaigns. An interest in New Jersey and Mid-Atlantic (USA) could well indicate an interest in the areas in North America where a large number of South Korean immigrants live and a desire to connect with them. This idea is further supported by the fact that CYworld recently opened a US version of their social network platform.Social Media Insights
Perhaps content regarding the experiences of South Koreans in New Jersey would attract a ready audience from South Korea and encourage them to sign up for educational courses pertinent to the legal profession. Many South Koreans may be considering on joining their relatives in New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic states for which immigration visa services could be promoted. Both of these areas are possible services that could benefit from lead generation campaigns. Even though there are differences between the number of unique visitors to Facebook and Cyworld, there is less of a difference between the page views generated at 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion respectively. This appears as less of a difference when one considers that Cyworld has more than two and a half times more visitors than Facebook in South Korea. The time that South Korean Facebook users spend on the site is longer than the time spent on Cyworld with an average of 9 minutes and 30 seconds is spent on Cyworld compared to 16 minutes and 40 seconds on Facebook which suggests that Facebook is still very much within the radar of internet marketers hoping to use social media to gain visitors in South Korea.Search Engine Market Share
Search engine market share in South Korea is dominated by Naver, the home grown search engine with a 49.75% share followed by Google with a 36.9%. Daum, Yahoo and Nate trail behind with 6.86%, 4.94% and 0.81% respectively. Daum and Nate are also South Korean search engines. Yahoo Korea provides the paid search results for Naver and Nate whilst Daum has an agreement with Google who provides the paid ads for them. It has been reported that South Korean search engines perform better due to a difference in the cultural attitudes of the searcher. All of the South Korean search engines appear more like portals and the home pages have a combination of images and user generated content which, it is suggested, the South Koreans prefer more than search. It appears that in the majority of cases it is only after using user generated content and blogs that the user will turn to the natural search results. Internet marketers need to be aware of these preferences and consider whether user generated content such as product reviews would be suitable for their chosen areas of internet marketing.Internet Usage in South Korea
Internet Population: 39,440,000GDP Per Capita: $29,791
Internet Market Potential (GDP*Users/million): $1,174,957 million
Internet Advertising Market Size:
Search Engine Market Share in South Korea
Search Engine Market Share: Nave 49.75%, Google 36.9%, Daum 6.86%, Yahoo 4.94%, Nate 0.81%Mobile Users in South Korea
Mobile Users: 47.944 millionSocial Media in South Korea
Facebook Users: 3,534,720Facebook Penetration: 7.27%
Average CPC on Facebook: $0.61
Worldwide share of Twitter Users: 0.23%
10 Most Popular Sites in South Korea
1. Naver.com2. Google.com
3. Facebook.com
4. Daum.net
5. Google.co.kr
6. Youtube.com
7. Yahoo.com
8. Nate.com
9. Baidu.com
10. Cyworld.com
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