Mobile shopping in South Korea expanded by more than twofold in 2014 from a year earlier, on the back of the country’s advanced mobile technology and a shift in consumption trend, a report showed Friday.
The size of mobile shopping in Asia’s fourth-largest economy came to 13.14 trillion won ($11.9 billion) at the end of last year, up 122.3 percent from 5.91 trillion won tallied the previous year, according to the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade.
In contrast, internet shopping on desktops shrank 5.4 percent on-year to 31.96 trillion won, reflecting that more shoppers have been shifting to use mobile tools to purchase items, the report said.
The size of the combined online shopping market stood at 45.1 trillion won as of end-2014, up 13.7 percent from a year ago.
The rapid growth of mobile shopping is attributable to the fact that consumers can make purchases via mobile device regardless of time and space, the report said.
The fast spread of mobile technology in the country, where 75 percent of the population own at least one smartphone, helped fuel the growth, it said.
The report also noted that an increase in single households and double-income families in Korea has spurred demand for mobile shopping, as they began to prefer mobile shopping on their commute to and from work.
“The growth of mobile shopping is a worldwide trend, which is why there is a need to set the online environment in a way to make foreign consumers feel more comfortable while shopping for items,” Koo Jin-kyung, a KIET researcher said. (Yonhap)
