Internet use in South Korea
| Pages | 335-344 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520210447903 |
| Published date | 01 October 2002 |
| Date | 01 October 2002 |
| Author | Yong J. John,G.E. Gorman |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Internet use in
South Korea
Yong J. John and
G.E. Gorman
Introduction
As more commercial activities, educational
material, computer games and entertainment are
offered online, access to the Internet has become
increasingly important in the Republic of Korea.
Responding this trend, the Korean government
has implemented a plan to stimulate Internet use
by allowing people to transmit large quantities of
data at low cost from everywhere, including
home, work, school and Internet cafeÂs.
According to Gartner Dataquest (2002),
South Korea has achieved 54.8 per cent
broadband penetration into homes, which
places it first in terms of broadband Internet
penetration globally. This is a remarkable
figure when compared with 11 per cent in the
USA, 6.2 per cent in Japan, 1.3 per cent in
England and 0.6 per cent in Australia. This
paper seeks to provide an insight into how
South Koreans access the Internet and how
they use Internet-based services such as
banking and e-commerce. First, the paper
describes Internet users and their behaviour.
Key indicators are examined to show how the
general Internet environment has changed.
Motive, access frequency, use location,
connection type, online activities, and access
barriers are explored in studying Internet
users' behaviour. In the context of this paper
an Internet user is defined as anyone who uses
the Internet at least once a month. All
respondents of this survey are over seven years
old. The various data related to Internet
facilities, services and access are taken from
current (2002) reports issued by the Korean
Network Information Centre (KRNIC), the
Korean National Statistics Office (KNSO,
2002), and the Bank of Korea (2002).
Second, the paper analyses key Internet
services such as Internet banking and
e-commerce. For Internet banking, the
number of online customers, banking services,
and mobile banking services are reviewed. For
e-commerce, the number of shopping sites,
sales by product, and type of site are explored.
Internet users and their behaviour
Five key indicators are used in this paper to
help describe Internet use in Korea: the
number of .kr domains, the number of IP
addresses, the number of Web hosts, the
number of ISPs, and the number of Internet
users (see Table I). As of April 2002, the
The authors
Yong J. John is Professor of Management Information
Systems at Woosuk University, South Korea and Visiting
Scholar, School of Information Management, Victoria
University, Wellington, New Zealand.
G.E. Gorman is Professor of Library and Information
Management at Victoria University, Wellington,
New Zealand.
Keywords
Internet, User studies, Banking, Business development,
Republic of Korea
Abstract
This paper provides an insight into how South Koreans
access the Internet and use Internet services such as
banking and commerce. The paper shows overall Internet
use in relation to users and their behaviour, and presents
data on Internet services such in banking and
e-commerce. Data are taken from reports issued by the
Korean Network Information Centre in 2002.
Electronic access
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The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
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Refereed article received 7 July 2002
Approved for publication 17 July 2002.
335
Online Information Review
Volume 26 .Number 5 .2002 .pp. 335±344
#MCB UP Limited .ISSN 1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/14684520210447903
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