Mobile Plusses
The Korean Society for Internet Information said on April 12 that smartphone applications, which first appeared in the latter half of 2009 in Korea, are estimated to have led to a direct employment effect of 245,030 jobs and an indirect employment effect of 61,000 jobs a year in the country. It added that the economic value of the mobile app industry is estimated at 1 trillion won (US$913 million) in total, and 103 million won (US$94,039) per app.
According to its recent report, direct employment can be divided into 117,803 technical jobs and 127,227 non-technical jobs. “In the EU member countries, mobile applications have resulted in the creation of approximately 794,000 jobs, including 330,000 technical ones,” the report read.
In the meantime, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) recently estimated that mobile Internet-based annual sales reach US$682 billion in 13 countries, accounting for 70 percent of the global GDP. The BCG also said that the amount would increase to US$1.546 trillion by 2017, while showing a growth of 23 percent a year. Korea is expected to increase its amount from US$28 billion to US$40 billion during the same period.
“Such an increase in mobile Internet-based sales will result in the creation of new sales of US$780 per adult in all 13 countries, along with three million jobs,” the BCG explained, continuing, “Mobile applications’ increasing influence on the GDP will result in greater investment for a virtuous economic cycle.”