By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Mobile phones have become arguably the most important electronic device for young people in South Korea, with nearly 90 percent of children owning a handset by the time they reach the age of 12, a report said.
Korea's wireless penetration rate for early teens is significantly higher than numbers in neighboring nations Japan and China, which also have exploding mobile populations, with the devices becoming essential in the daily lives and education of elementary-school children.
Teenage users also consider text messaging as a more effective communication medium than voice conversations, according to a study of five mobile markets that also included India and Mexico.
KTF, Korea's second-largest mobile telephony operator, along with the GSM Association and the Mobile Society Research Institute of Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo, studied the usage patterns of around 6,000 mobile users between the ages of 12 and 18 from the five countries during the first half of 2008.
According to the report, 87.7 percent of Korean 12 year olds have mobile phones, with Japan coming next closest at 50 percent, followed by Mexico at 45.1 percent. China's wireless penetration rate for 12 year olds was 27.7 percent and India came last at 11.6 percent.
Korea's 80.6 percent penetration rate for teenagers between 12 and 18 was also the highest among the five countries, followed by Japan's 77.3 percent and Mexico's 64 percent. China's penetration rate for the age group was 48.9 percent, followed by India's 30.6 percent, the report said.
``The report shows that Koreans get their mobile phones at a much earlier age than other countries, while teenagers in Japan, a comparable mobile market, usually get their first phones in middle school or high school,'' said a KTF official.
``It is interesting that Korean parents with a stronger interest in education are more likely to buy mobile phones for their children, which would be a way to keep an eye on them. However, things were found the opposite in India, where parents with a stronger interest in education were more unlikely to buy mobile phones for their children.''
Only 10 percent of Korean parents said they were concerned about their children getting mobile phones at a young age, compared with the 20 to 50 percent of parents in other countries.
This is probably because Koreans consider mobile phones as a necessity, KTF officials said, and also reflects the advanced filtering systems by local operators to block adult content.
When picking handsets, Korean teenagers considered design and capability first, while Chinese users were concerned most about voice quality. Indian teenagers were moved most by battery power, while Japanese users seemed rather indifferent about the brands of handset makers and wireless operators, the report said.
Japanese teenagers had the highest average revenue per user (ARPU), spending about $58 per month on mobile services, followed by Koreans at $27 and Mexicans at $19. Chinese teenagers spent $11 a month, while Indian users spent around $5.
In the four countries, with the exception of China, teenage girls tended to get their mobile phones earlier than boys, the report said.
Teenagers in all five countries said they considered text messages as more reliable than voice. SK Telecom, Korea's largest mobile telephony carrier, recently reported that its teenage subscribers sent an average of more than 9,250 text messages last year, which translates to about 25 per day.