Telecom market for overseas Koreans to reach W1.5 trillion by 2015: report

The telecommunication market for overseas Koreans will see a boost in sales as more of them want to stay connected to their roots, an industry report concluded Sunday.

According to DigiEco, a KT Corp.-affiliated think tank, the telecom market for overseas Koreans is expected to reach 1.5 trillion won ($1.3 billion) by 2015, a 36 percent increase from 1.1 trillion won this year.

The report, which analyzed the influence of 90 million overseas Koreans in the IT sector, found the market for mobile phones would increase from 690 billion won to 1 trillion during the same period.

The international phone call market would grow from 250 billion won to 310 billion won, while the market for telecom content would also grow from 150 billion won to 170 billion won.

The report pointed out that the increase in non-immigrant Koreans living abroad would play a decisive role in expanding the telecom business targeting them.

The number of ethnic Koreans overseas, which remained at 71 million last year, is expected to hit 9.3 million mark by 2015, the report said.

The growth rate in non-immigrants would be more apparent than that of permanent residents, the report said, with the number almost doubling from 19 million to 37 million in the coming five years.

“Overseas Koreans who stay briefly for business or study are more likely to maintain connections to Korea. Many of them were found to have two handsets, with one for Korean use,” the report said.

Non-immigrant Koreans abroad also showed high demands for Korean content as well, the report found.

The report explained that the podcast “Na-ggom-su,” an online talk show on political issues, could get the top ranking on iTunes in North America due to its soaring popularity among overseas Korean students there.

Social network service and Internet phone call, in which there are no boundaries, are also a useful service for overseas Koreans, it said.

“Taking overseas Koreans as a bridge to spread Korean Wave, industries need to expand the telecom content market including that for foreign customers,” the report said.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)