Korea's Cloud Market Expected to Double in 5 Years
Google Cloud will open up the Seoul region (a cloud data center) early next year under a plan to expand its cloud business in South Korea. It has selected Korea as a strategic market and is focusing its investment on it.
Google Cloud held “Google Cloud Summit Seoul 2019” at the COEX Convention Center in Seoul on Nov. 6. Lee ji-young, general manager of Google Cloud Korea, said that Korea is one of the global markets where Google makes strategic investments.
Google Cloud forecasts that the local public cloud market will grow to US$3.1 billion (about 3.5 trillion won) in five years, approximately more than twice its current size of US$ 1.5 billion (about 1.7 trillion won).
A public cloud refers to a cloud service offered to multiple customers by external cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft.
Google Cloud now provides its service to companies in various industrial sectors, including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, SK Telecom, Korean Air, Socar, and WeMakePrice.
With the Seoul region due to open early next year, Google Cloud plans to penetrate the Korean market. And Seoul will become Google’s eighth region in Asia and Pacific, following other locations such as Tokyo, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Google Cloud also plans to acquire security authentication as the banking industry starts to provide cloud services from next year.
At the Google Cloud Summit, Google Cloud, in cooperation with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), released its analysis on how much the introduction of cloud service would affect the country. According to the analysis, public cloud services will contribute about US$45 billion (around 54 trillion won) to the Korean economy within the next five years. The figure amounts to 0.6 percent of the annual gross domestic product (GDP). It will account for 20 percent of the value created by the automotive industry that is the main force of the country, and 10 percent of the economic effects of the electronic industry.