Android set to reign over smartphones
By Yoon Ja-young
A year has passed since the launch of Android, a mobile operating system by Google, in Korea. It has changed the life of smartphone users as well as the landscape of the mobile telecom industry.
Since the launch of the Android-based Motoroi by Motorola, in February last year, Android has made a quantum leap here.
The number of local Android phone users breached 5 million, making it the main smartphone operating system.
Power of openness
Android owes its success to openness. As it is an open source platform, developers can easily create applications and share them with users around the world. In Android market, an open market where applications for Android phones can be downloaded, the number of applications amounts to 150,000, which is a huge jump from only 10,000 early last year.
Thus, it has enabled endless innovation and limitless business opportunities. While Apple’s iPhone opened up in the market, Android phones have eaten into the market thanks to variety. Not only local manufacturers like Samsung and LG but also foreign firms like Motorola and Sony Ericsson presented Android-based phones. Smartphone users can thus choose from a variety of models and prices.
Google partners with Korean firms
Android coupled with local smartphone manufacturers to confront Apple’s iPhone. Concerned voices of local manufacturers had risen due to their late moves in the smartphone competition, but they overtook their global rivals. Samsung Electronics sold over 2.5 million of its Galaxy S running on Android, resetting the sales record for the handset. Pantech, which fell into a crisis, rose again by launching the Syrius phone, and LG Electronics, which was most troubled due to near absolute negligence in the smartphone market, is quickly catching up to the others by selling over 6,000 sets of Optimus 2X daily.
While KT, the second largest player in the telecommunications market, coupled with Apple’s iPhone, the two other carriers of SK Telecom and LG Uplus have partnered with Android.
“Android is growing at an amazing speed globally, setting up a stable biosphere. We plan to introduce the Android tablet PC preemptively as we did with the Android phones,” said Seo Sung-won, in charge of open marketing at SK Telecom.
The average daily sale of Android phones stands at over 14,000, which outruns the 4,000 for iPhone. Currently, over 80 percent of their smartphone users are Android-based phones.
It contributed to the local mobile industry as well. According to SK Telecom, the number of mobile app developers soared by 157 percent to 22,300 as of the end of January, from 8,670 a year ago.
Android is seeing explosive growth worldwide as well. Since October 2008, when G-Mobile G1 was introduced as the first Android phone, around 170 devices running on Android have been launched in 96 countries around the world. Currently, the number of users is growing by 300,000 a day.
Android is still behind Apple when it comes to applications. The number of Android applications is still far behind Apple’s app store which has 350,000. However, it is stronger than Apple, at least in Korea. Two out of three smartphone users are using Android phones here, by enjoying a wider choice in the lineup as local manufacturers bet on Android.