Visual Age
The number of LTE subscribers topped 40 million in Korea, where the first LTE service started four years ago.
The technology has allowed users to enjoy wireless Internet faster than wired Internet services and boosted the number of users who enjoy video content on their smartphones. Under the circumstances, mobile carriers are vying fiercely for such content in an effort to increase their profits.
LTE has promoted the use of multimedia services, and LTE data traffic in the country increased about six-fold from 27,687 TB to 152,338 TB between the end of 2012 and the end of September this year. The LTE data consumption per subscriber jumped from 1.8 GB to more than 4 GB during the same period. More than half of the usage is for video content, which is followed by those for web portals, mobile messengers and social networking services. Nowadays, more and more people are watching HD and full-HD programs and footage on smartphones instead of their computers or TVs. They can watch programs they missed whenever and wherever by means of VOD, too.
This has to do with mobile carriers’ business expansion into the media industry. SK Telecom recently acquired CJ Hello Vision and announced that it would raise a fund of approximately 100 billion won (US$85 million) with the CJ Group for the purpose of supporting content creators and startups. LG U+, in the meantime, launched a video portal app along with the Uflix movie service to provide a variety of brand new movies at a monthly price of 7,000 won (US$6.05).