Smartphone users use more than 4.5GB a month
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The average Korean smartphone user uses more than 4.5 GB a month. / Screen capture from YouTube
By Kim Da-hee
Korean smartphone users used an average of 4.55GB of data April, a Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning report showed Tuesday.
With smartphone users accounting for 73 percent of mobile phone users, it has been a growing trend for people to spend their free time browsing SNS sites, watching videos or listening to music.
This trend has caused the average monthly data people spend to increase rapidly.
The average reached 4GB last October, and climbed to about 4.1GB in January and 4.52GB in March. This is far higher than the average data use in other countries. According to reports by NPD Group, the average American smartphone user uses 2.9GB a month. The average monthly data use in Singapore, which has the fastest LTE download speed according to OpenSignal, is slightly over 3GB.
In Korea, the fifth-fastest country in terms of LTE download speed, using more than 4.5GB a month requires people to subscribe to a monthly data plan that costs more than 50,000 won ($42).
Many users have upgraded their plans to use more data, changing from plans costing between 20,000 and 40,000 won to more expensive ones.
Although industry sources claim the increased use has a considerable influence on household expenses, it had little impact on average household communication costs, such as landline phone fees.
From the fourth quarter of 2014 to the first quarter this year, the figure has stayed at 120,000 won a month.
“The falling cost of mobile devices, laws to restrict phone subsidies, and many cheaper smartphones have offset the increased cost of data use,” a ministry official said.