Another update on 3G in Korea....to paraphrase Twain, rumours of its demise are greatly exaggerated.
In my previous post, I stated the possability that Korea could see 4 million 1x users by year-end. The total ended up being 4.2 million at YE '01....and they are over 5 million as of the end of January.
More importantly, it looks like 1x is fostering greater data usage. The following are statistics from SK Telecom's most recent earnings report.
Data ARPU
2G 2,103 Won
1x 4,788 Won
Color 8,177 Won
Overall ARPU was 40,087 Won with 190 Minutes of Use.
SK Telecom has also announced that they have begun service of 1xEV-DO in their first market. Service is expected to expand to most large Korean cities in time for the World Cup in May. They have a target of 800,000 subscribers by YE '02....the handsets/PDA's are currently expected to be priced at $450+. The average data ARPU for 1x/1xEV-DO subscribers at year-end is expected to be 9,000-10,000 Won.
I havent yet seen any user reports on average throughput speeds but I would expect that they would be 150Kbps plus.
I know that sceptics remain about the ability of next generation data services to drive data usage. However, we now have two counties in the world which have extensive packet data networks (with packet billing) and color handsets....both have seen some tremendous gains in data ARPU. For myself, two countries are the beginning of a trend. Korea (unlike Japan) has handset upgrade patterns similair to the US and their use of public transportation (another factor in Japan's success) also mirrors the US more than it does Japan.
Of course, there are still problems. Verizon has launched 1x for about 20% of their covered POP's. As of right now, their pricing scheme is an absolute disaster. They are only aiming for the laptop market....and only the business segment of even that market. This is a sure way to guarantee slow growth and a low rate of return on their investment.
One other data point....KT Freetel (the second largest Korean operator) launched BREW in December. I havent seen any detailed reports about it's success/failure but Qualcomm reported that users were averaging two downloads a day. Obviously, this is likely greatly boosted by early adopters...but it is a nice sign for the future.
Slacker
ARPU....Average Revenue Per User (per month) |
