This Week’s Startup – Woowa Bros.   Woowa Brothers <Baedal Minjok> <Official Website Link> “If you have ever been to South Korea, what is the most surprising part ?” Most of answers to this questions are predictable; foods, people, culture, and nature. But there is one answer unexpected; food delivery service. Food delivery service can be seen almost everywhere in South Korea bringing convenient, city life-style. With one easy phone call, you…

The Korean Market: Huge.  Korea’s population: 50 million, with strong purchasing power. Korea’s GDP as of 2011: in the range of US$1.16 trillion. Korea’s GDP per capita: $22,778. Geographically, Korea is situated at the center of maritime & air transportation networks in Northeast Asia. Northeast Asia has now become one of the three global economic pillars, along with the US and Europe. Korea’s its high-end market is recognized as the ‘global trend-setter’ in the region. There…

Here is a list of great websites you should know about when you want to do business in Korea:             KOTRA (Korea Trade Association). http://english.kotra.or.kr/             KOCCA (Korea Creative Content Agency). http://www.kocca.kr/eng/index.html             KOVA (Korea Venture Business Association). http://venture.or.kr/kova/index.jsp             Invest Korea. http://www.investkorea.org/ikwork/iko/eng/main/index.jsp             The Korean Law…

I read somewhere that it was gratifying for Koreans to watch Tim Cook (the Head of Apple Inc.) ‘beg’ for China’s forgiveness. Well, I guess that can be true to a certain extent, although I personally don’t agree with this. I also read somewhere that ‘apparently being the CEO of the best company in the world means to always say that you’re sorry.’ So, obviously, there’s a lot of emotions involved. It…

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (hereby ICT) held its first international meeting in preparation for the plenipotentiary conference of the “International Telecommunication Union” to be held at Busan next year. The ITU plenipotentiary conference is expected to bring together about 3,000 people from different governments, international organizations, and businesses in 193 nations. 100 representatives from 38 member states from the Asia-Pacific region attended the meeting to get global ICT…

Earlier this year we reported that smartphone penetration had reached 60%, and the new figure (only 2 months later) shows that a massive 67% of South Korean mobile subscribers use smartphones.

Adjapan and 8crops are subsidiaries of Fancommunications, one of the largest ASPs (affiliate service providers) in Japan. They offer a range of interesting marketing solutions for both PCs and smartphones. They are now actively expanding into new markets, having seen sustained domestic growth.

Korean mobile game developer Gamevil has just released a new mobile action game ‘Sir Death’ into the Korean domestic open markets. Having first been released in the Apple App Store back in October 2012, ‘Sir Death’ is now making forays into the general Korean smartphone gaming market.

At the end of last week South Korea’s communications watchdog turned down bids by two Korean firms to set up the country’s fourth mobile operator.

Japan and Korea present amazing opportunities for app developers, but fierce competition and unique characteristics means local knowledge and a finely tuned entry strategy is a must. This article aims to uncover some of the truths to help you succeed.

Several big names have exited Korea in the last few years (CarreFour, Walmart, Motorola, RIM, HTC, Goldman Sachs, to mention a few), but can Korean consumers be blamed for the failure of foreign companies to attract and retain market share, as some have suggested?