Trends in South Korea – Interview: Sangbu Kim, VP Future Growth Strategy Unit, LG Uplus

 

There are two trends in South Korea. 

 

One thing is that the Korean peo ple’s demand for voice-calling has been going down very fastly. So voice-calling is not a good market

 

But another thing is that there are chances for the voice call operators. First, the foreign employees in Korea keeps growing so fast and they demand for voice calling with their family. Second, more and more Chinese tourists are coming to Korea, so they demand for voice services to call home.

 

Yet basically Korean people no longer talk over the phones these days.

 

So rather than voice, data traffic is growing fast and there’s better chance for mobile data connection. Korean people consume data on average at 2.6 Gb on LTE networks. As the usage rate is growing fast, to utilise that demand of data traffic, especially mobile data traffic, is a good chance for operators and carriers.

 

 

LTE is the main service these days and we’re preparing for 5G service targeting 2018. After 2018 or 2019, we will launch the next generation 5G service in the mobile concept. For fixed line, we’re deploying the giga internet service. We can provide 1Gb for the home service. 

 

Also, to utilise LTE and 5G networks, we’re focusing on Internet of Things like M2M solutions, connected cars, or home IoT service (CCTVs, gas lock, etc.).

 

In the short term, we will invest in giga internet or the fixed line. In the long term, it’s next generation 5G networks and home IoTs.