Getting More Qualitative
According to the Korean software (SW) industry on February 12, it was estimated that last year Korean SW exports reached a little more than US$7 billion, up 9.7% from the previous year (US$6.38 billion).
The SW industry estimated that last year Korean SW exports exceeded US$7 billion in preliminary results thanks to the growth of the package software industry after surpassing US$6 billion for the first time in 2015 and running to US$6.38 billion in 2016. "I was told that last year, Korea’s SW exports surpassed US$7 billion for the first time last year due to an increase in SW exports," said Yoo Young-min, minister of science and ICT in a ceremony to mark the start of the New Year for the Korean SW industry on February 17.
SW exports are largely divided into IT service exports and package SW exports. While the proportion of IT service exports through official development assistance programs had been high until 2015, package SW exports began to eclipse IT service exports in 2016. This is attributable to the fact that Korean companies have enhanced their competitiveness while beefing up their technological power and boosting product completeness and improving their customized services in competition with global companies for a long time. In particular, long overseas investment gave rise to the birth of hit Korean SW products in overseas markets, thereby driving up Korean SW exports.
"The Japanese SW market is very finicky about the quality of SW products. Notwithstanding Korean SW products have made a successful foray into the Japanese SW market, showing that Korean SW products have been duly recognized by the world," said an official of the Korean Commercial SW Association. "We are expecting that Korean SW exports will shoot up as there are a lot of Korean SW products with strong accumulated competitiveness."