So it’s needed in the states. Why is it needed in Korea? Since 2000, South Korea has grown from a developing pharmaceutical market to one boasting of universal healthcare coverage and easy access to medical facilities; but is South Korea provides strong financial support for its elderly population through impressive access to healthcare insurance and reimbursement. The Korean regulatory authority approves medical products through a transparent, strong and efficient regulatory system, and…

beSUCCESS covers weekly news in Korea, 25 Mar.

South Korea is now the second most innovative country in the world, according to Bloomberg. The data compiled by financial and data provider ranked Korea behind the US – who topped the list by climbing 6 ranks. Korea moved up 1, from 3rd place to 2nd. The research indicated progress in Korea’s innovation-related sector. However, Korea’s productivity ranked relatively low at 32nd, while it made the top 10 in the seven other measures. The nation’s patent activity ranked first among the 50 countries in the ranking. Finland, which topped the ranking last year, fell to fourth place, while Japan and China ranked sixth and 29th, respectively.

SK Telecom Co.,South Korea’s top mobile operator reported a two-fold growth in its Q4 profit in 2012. They claimed that this was due to a decrease in marketing costs – meaning what? The results come as the country’s three mobile operators ― SK Telecom, KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp. ― have been slowing down their marketing drive recently amid the communications watchdog’s move to cool market competition. In December last year, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) fined the three firms a combined 11.9 billion won and imposed business suspensions for giving out excessive subsidies to lure LTE subscribers.

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.

SparkLabs, a startup accelerator in Korea, hosted its first Demo Day today in Seoul, Korea. SparkLabs also announced its expansion into healthcare for its upcoming second class. Sparklabs is founded by Bernard Moon, Hanjoo Lee and Jimmy Kim.

1 in 3 North Americans use Korean smartphones. Apple was the number 1 smartphone vendor in the USA with 37.6% market share in 2012. LG and Samsung are catching up, and their sales in the US and Canada continue to grow. Who will be the no.1 smartphone vendor in the US in 2013?

Since November 2009, the global smartphone industry has seen many changes. ZTE and Huawei have both been gaining market share in the Chinese and overseas market, but why have these Chinese rivals not been active in releasing their smartphones in Korea and what are their plans for the future?

LG was the world’s fifth-largest handset maker last year, with a 3.3% market share. Is this about to change in the next couple of years however? This year, LG plans to promote a follow-up series of the line-up in these continents without a high long-term evolution penetration. They will reveal the second series of the L3, L5 and L7 models at the Mobile World Congress 2013. It will be interesting to see how they change the dynamics, considering LG’s success with OLED panels.

Display Search announced that the OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) TV panel market in Korea is expected to grow to around $3 billion in 2015. LG Display officials announced that “[they] will continue to secure new sources of competitiveness to set up entry barriers that [their] competitors will not be able to break through.” We have identified 6 major reasons why we think LG will be the dominant player in the global TV…

beSUCCESS covers weekly news in Korea, 18 Feb.

Daum communications and Kakao will be making a series of startups acquisitions. This is to increase their competitive edge in terms of mobile services. The two Korean giants have acquired Dialoid and Sunnyloft respectively. What are the implications for startups and the startup ecosystem?

KakaoPage, a platform that allows its users to market and sell their creative contents (audio, video, text) was launched last week. What exactly is it? Is the goal of making one million “profit-earning” partners within three years along with the launch feasible?

Wizard Work’s ‘Som Note’ was released recently on ‘Chatting Plus’ that was launched by Kakao Japan last month. It currently stands at 6th place on Google Play rankings- ahead of Naver’s Naver Memo (ranked 10th) and Evernote (ranked 21st). beSUCCESS investigates for their success.

beSUCCESS covers weekly news in Korea, 10 Feb.

Since January 29, Line users have been doubling in Hong Kong. Just 2 weeks before that, Line also passed its 100 million user mark on January 18th. What are some of the lookouts for Line?

beSUCCESS covers weekly news in Korea, 3 Feb.

beSUCCESS covers weekly news in Korea, 27 Jan.

Will Bada fuse with the TIZEN project? The Tizen Association was formed in 2012 by executives from Samsung, Intel, NTT Docomo and Vodafone to support the open source software. Having Samsung’s own ecosystem will give them a full control on features, updates and hardware specifications of all of the products. But some say that if Samsung moves away from Android, they would be shooting themselves in the foot. Before they were introduced Android to their phones, Samsung had a line of feature phones. Samsung tried making their own OS for smartphones, Bada – but some say that this was pretty much a flop, and some say that it is still being developed.

Korea has GooDoc, and America’s got ZocDoc. Earlier on this month, ZocDoc received more than 2.5 million people visits and 130% bump in bookings. Annual physical tests booked on ZocDoc are up about 650% since 2010. Consequently, it has raised $95 million in funding to date. What are their 3 reasons for success? In Part II, we will investigate the differences and provide an analysis of the current Korean market.