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(Last updated: 18 Jul 2011)
Trends and opportunities
ICT business opportunities
Since the 1990s, Korea’s information and communication technology industry has achieved remarkable growth, and has been the single most important industry both in enabling the country’s recovery from the financial crisis in 1997 and driving the country’s economic growth. In 2008, according to the Korean government, IT industry accounted for 31.1 per cent of its total exports.
The ICT market of Korea is estimated at A$16 billion in 2011, 3.1 per cent increase from that of 2010. Compared to 4.2 per cent increase of 2010, the smaller growth rate is due to the slowed recovery of the global economy to which its economy is heavily linked.
Key-opportunity areas include the following:
- Corporate solutions (ERP, SCM, MES, PLM etc)
- Telecommunications
- PC security solutions
- Digital contents (English learning, cultural contents, platform-independent etc)
- Financial solutions
- Green IT applications
Korea’s issues and trends in 2011:
- Convergence
Convergence issues to upgrade the country’s capability in manufacturing industries, using ICT technologies will be one of hot topics around the year.
- Cloud computing
More attentions will be given to clould computing due to its effective use of distributed IT resources and reduced IT cost.
- Mobility computing
Since the introduction of iPhone to the market in November 2009, almost 10 million smart phones are in use currently in Korea, one-fifth of all mobile phones in Korea. Thanks to the rapid expansion of smart phones and tablet PCs in the market, there has been growing discussions on the mobile office environment and its resultant consequences on the market.
- Security
Because of DDos attack in 2010 and the rapid increase in the smart phone users, security has also become one of the hot topics in the country’s IT community.
Key projects by industries
Banking and finance
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Introduction of additional ATM’s, smart banking system, and International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for major banks.
Installation of next generation IT system for 2nd tier financial sectors (insurance, credit card, savings bank etc). |
| Manufacturing |
Advancing key corporate applications such as ERP, SCM, MES, and PLM.
Global system integrations connecting regional and country offices.
IT convergence technologies such as imbedded software.
Green IT solutions to cope with strict environment regulations.
The rise of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) as a foundation for sustainable management.
Mobile computing environment to effectively utilise smart phones in organisations’ core business. |
| Service |
Flexible system to advance into new opportunities and adapt to changing environments.
Rising demands for advanced CRM/BI.
Rising demands for mobile business solutions to realise U-business.
Intensive investment on security required against security failures such as DDos attack and disclosure of customers’ personal information.
Rising demands for advancing existing corporate solutions such as ERP and co-work environment (VC and UC). |
Why is this market attractive for Australian companies?
- Korea’s demands for foreign software can be said relatively high as its dependency rate on the foreign software is around 80 per cent.
- Australia and Korea are in complementary rather than competing relations, and could be a good match in ICT business considering their strengths in different areas, Australia in software while Korea in hardware products.
- Besides, Korea has successfully built up its world’s 13th largest economy (as of the first half of 2010) through its export-driven economic development strategy since 1960s. Therefore, Korean companies could be considered as good partners with good reasons for possible joint approaches to third markets.
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