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I seriously doubt the accuracy of these stats. South Korea's web services are largely insular and just for South Korea. It well known that foreign websites have
by Tsagadai 15y ago
I seriously doubt the accuracy of these stats. South Korea's web services are largely insular and just for South Korea. It well known that foreign websites have much smaller market shares of pageviews and users than domestic Korean sites. There is a Korean clone for almost every major website presently available and they are usually made by existing, large Korean companies with advertising and media budgets to get numbers away from foreign competitors. Given the deliberately isolationist nature of so many internet companies here, you cannot get accurate stats for usage unless you have their stats.
I know this is anecdotal but the majority of people I see on the bus have iPhones. iPads are probably on par with Android tablets though. iPhones are huge here. Almost everyone has or wants a smartphone which usually means an iPhone mainly due to the perception of Apple as a luxury brand and luxury brands being so overwhelmingly popular.
- stevenae 15y agoVery interesting, thanks for the insight. I want to note that there is still value to this data. Although the coverage may not be accurate (covering all users), it sounds like it is precise (covering a very specific subset of users that access foreign sites, which StatCounter tracks). The fact that these users have moved so dramatically to Android in just 13 months says something. Is there a pro version of StatCounter that gives absolute figures, to see if there has been a dramatic change in tracked users over this time period?
- dave1619 15y agoHaving some background with Korea and living there, I also strongly doubt the accuracy of this report.
- nextparadigms 15y agoThe market share doesn't seem to be for total user base, but for new sales. So even if there is a user base of 40% iPhones there, it's declining fast and trending towards 5%, because the sales for last month show 5% iPhones sold and 95% Android phones sold.
- eftpotrm 15y agoIf that's for sales, would it not be quite predictable that iPhone sales are dropping when a new model is anticipated in the next few months?
- bane 15y agoI know this is anecdotal but the majority of people I see on the bus have iPhones. I noticed virtually the same last time I was there in 2010. But one thing I'll never underestimate is the power of trends in Korean purchasing patterns. Once something gets popular, everybody has to have it, no matter what it is.