Category: Featured News

Korean mobile advertising marketplace to break 1 trillion won in 2015

| October 7, 2015

A new white paper has been released that shows that the market will grow by 27.2 percent this year.

The Korea Internet & Security Agency has now published its 2015 Korea Internet White Paper, in which it has predicted that the mobile advertising market is going to have grown by 27.2 percent, this year, bringing it to a figure that steps over the 1 trillion won mark.

More specifically, it is forecasted that mobile ads will reach about 1.06 trillion won by the close of 2015.

This equates to about US$897.4 million. It will represent the first time the mobile advertising industry has cracked the one trillion won mark. The complete ad market in Korea is estimated to be worth about 9 trillion won, and the current segment of that figure that belongs to mobile marketing is estimated to be around 8.4 percent. Overall, smartphone and tablet marketing has been crawling upward in the size of the total ad market that it represents.

The growth of the mobile advertising market has boosted the proportion of ad to total sales by around 70 percent.

Mobile Advertising - South KoreaThe three main portal business operators in Korea are: Daum, SK Communication and Naver. Those three companies posted a combined sales of 3.7542 trillion won (which equates to about US$3.18 billion). Of that figure, about 71.4 percent, that is 2.6816 trillion won (or approximately US$2.27 billion) was generated by the advertising sector. SK Communications was the portal that generated the greatest percentage of ad sales, with 84.2 percent. In second place was Naver, with 73.1 percent, and then Daum, which had 64.9 percent.

A rise in the usage of mobile communication and a considerable spike in m-commerce in 2014 were believed to be strongly connected with each other. Last year, there was an increase in overall online shopping by 17.5 percent, bringing it to a total of 45.244 trillion won (which was about US$38.24 billion). That represented a massive 125.8 percent rise over the same figure from 2013.

The overall proportion of shopping transactions that took place over mobile commerce from among the total online shopping transactions increased by 15.7 percent over 2013. These trends indicate that mobile advertising will continue its strong and steady growth to keep up with the shopping trend over the same channel.

Mobile commerce is about to get personal, says Google, Facebook

| October 6, 2015

Some of the giants in the industry are saying that smartphone shopping will soon be far more personalized.

As mobile commerce continues its evolution, new developments, insights, and predictions have become relatively commonplace, particularly as a growing number of real-life features are starting to be included in the shopping experience to integrate smartphones in the shopping experience.

Beacons, mobile marketing, and smartphone based payments at checkout counters are blurring the reality/digital lines.

Now, some of the largest players in this market, including Google, Facebook, and Foursquare, are attempting to ensure that smartphone users are able to use mobile commerce to purchase the products and services they want whenever they want them and at any time. This effort is also trying to make the process as seamless as possible. These companies have also revealed that there is one major trend that appears to be present on virtually every level of mobile commerce as it moves ahead, and that is customization and personalization. The more a customer is able to see relevance and convenience with the use of smartphones as a part of their shopping experience, the more they are using it.

Mobile commerce is, therefore, about to become an increasingly personalized experience for consumers.

Mobile Commerce - PersonalAccording to the Facebook director of global marketing solutions, Kelly Graziadei, mobile apps are making up about half the total time that consumers are spending on their smartphones and tablets. Moreover, it was pointed out that 75 percent of that time is spent on the four most popular mobile apps, including that social network.

Therefore, among the main questions that are now being asked by the companies behind the leading applications is with regards to how they can go about continuing to engage a customer over the application and ensure that the right product is placed in front of the right individuals at exactly the time that they actually want it.

Graziadie explained that deep linking makes it possible for a customer to be sent from their Facebook or Instagram account to a retailer, and while this is a “big part of it,” it is also important to note that one of the primary questions in retail is exactly where the customer should be sent. Should it be to an app or to the website. The next mobile commerce question is how to use that direction to ensure that the experience will be as seamless as possible, as the key is to make sure that it is an entirely personalized experience.