Korea is notorious for being an extremely-difficult-to-survive market for many global brands due to some of its very exclusive nature, or rather some unique market characteristics. Included in this "failed" list are even the giants like Walmart and IKEA.
This trend has not been an exception in the tech industry. In the hardware sector, two Korean locals in Samsung and LG dominate the market while Naver and Daum are the kings and queens in the Internet sector. Sorry, Apple and Google.
Things might change now. Google decided to go portal and hurray, iPhone is finally out.
For all of Google's supremacy around the world, Google barely holds 5% search marketshare in Korea. Why? How Google displays information doesn't satisfy Korean Internet users' needs for information. There are many "emotional" factors related to how or why people look for information. Google is basically, well, too "American" for Korean people.
Google became a little more Korean by adding a feature named "Hot Topics", which functions as the real-time Google Zeitgeist, or the "hot search terms" on Naver. Basically the Korean market has forced Google to go portal. (of course, this portal is, just like Google News, technology-based) Remember how Asian people are more "inter-dependent" rather than "independent" and constantly look for what others are interested at the moment? Google, until now, only has provided what "you alone are interested" through search results; it now displays information completely right next to search results. The thing is Koreans will click on these links! (I'll definitely come back in a couple of weeks on the traffic on Google Korea)
Now, for Apple. Thousands, if not millions, have been waiting for iPhone to come out over a year; due to many complexities in the telco industry, we were not able to get iPhone into the Korean market. And praise the Lord! The The wall has finally collapsed and I'm just loving my life right now as I'm reading streams of iPhone reviews written in Korean! There was a report yesterday that over half a million iPhones will be sold by the first half of next year. What more would I need to say?
Things might change now. Hopefully it'll be more fun.
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