Youtube Stands Out as No. 1 Player Here

By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter

Youtube topped the podium in the Korean video-sharing business last month for the first time since it tapped into Asia's fourth-largest economy in early 2008.

KoreanClick, a local online consultancy, said Sunday that Youtube carved out a 42.79-percent market share last month, up from 36.29 percent in May, in overall usage time.

It outdistanced business bellwether Pandora TV, which saw its market share dwindle from 40.75 percent in May to 34.19 percent last month.

Pandora TV maintained a comfortable lead over competitors until last year but Youtube has been undercutting the homegrown service's dominance this year.

``Pandora TV was ahead of the pack in the number of unique visitors at 6.9 million last month versus Google's 4.7 million,'' KoreanClick chief executive Yoo Do-hyun said.

``However, visitors to Youtube stayed at the site almost twice as long as those on Pandora TV. As a result, Youtube outrivaled Pandora TV for the first time,'' he said.

Google Korea spokeswoman Lois Kim yelled with delight, and with good reason, as Youtube is owned by Google.

Although Youtube prevails in global online video-sharing services, it struggled in Korea just like its parent firm Google, the world's No. 1 search engine, which has failed to get a double-digit market share here.

Youtube beefed up its standings to some extent last year by launching Korean-language services, but failed to catch up with runaway leader Pandora TV.

Youtube's footing was expected to slip further in April, when the site was at odds with the Korean government due to the Internet real-name system.

In April, the government urged Youtube to embrace the real-name system ― the Web site was obliged to ask users to present their names and identification details before uploading any video files or write-ups.

In defiance of the instruction, Youtube stopped Web users from posting video clips or comments on its Korean Internet site, prompting concerns that users would leave Youtube.

``When the Internet real-name system was imposed on us, we opted to scrap the uploading functionalities instead,'' Lois Kim said.

``We thought we were heading toward the right direction but were somewhat nervous. We are happy now to learn that we were right as confirmed by users,'' she said.

When contacted, Pandora TV CEO Peter Kim took issue with the credibility of the survey.

``We have found that domestic online consultancies have come up with dubious survey results. Sometimes the figures are seemingly too small. Sometimes they appear to be overblown,'' Kim said.

``Our own research shows that we are still ahead of Youtube and I trust our in-house data rather than those from domestic research companies,'' he said.

voc200@koreatimes.co.kr

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