[Weekly News] What’s Happening In Korea? (3. Feb)

PRODUCT

2013년 02월 04일 Sue J. Hur

Shut-down policy scrapped in South Korea

You might remember that we wrote about the shut-down policy a couple of weeks ago.

The debate on the shut-down policy has been going on for approximately 2 years, but at last, according to the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, the shut-down policy will no longer continue.

A study on the mobile games' addictiveness and the efficiency of the policy found that the mobile shut-down policy is not effective. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family will not be releasing the actual result of their research (yet).

The shut-down policy was met with strong opposition and criticisms from the public and the gaming industry in Korea.

Apple exceeds Samsung in mobile phone sales in America

According to Strategy Analytics, Apple is now the number 1 mobile phone vendor for the first time, with a record of 34% market share.

Annual growth of 4% in mobile phone shipments was made from 50.2 million in Q4 2011 to 52 million in Q4 2012 (in the United States), driven by the consumer demand for 4G smartphones and 3G feature phones. Despite this solid fourth-quarter performance, however, the US mobile phone shipments decreased by 11% in 2012 due to tighter carrier upgrade policies and economic uncertainty.

Strategy Analytics estimated that Apple shipped 17.7 million mobile phones for a record 34% share of the US market in the Q4 2012. This was up sharply from 12.8 million units shipped and 25% share in Q4 2011.

Samsung's market share rose 5%, from 27% a year earlier, but it was not enough to hold off a surging Apple. Samsung had been the number one mobile phone vendor in the US since 2008, and it will surely be keen to recapture that title in 2013 by launching improved new models such as the rumored Galaxy S4. You can read more about it here.

NHN NEXT School has its first influx of students