Internet country code | .kr |
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Broadband - fixed subscriptions | |
Total | 22,327,182 (2020 est.) |
Subscriptions per 100 inhabitants | 44 (2020 est.) |
Internet users | |
Total | 50.96 million (2021 est.) |
Percent of population | 98% (2021 est.) |
Telecommunication systems | |
General assessment | South Korea is second only to Hong Kong in the world rankings of telecom market maturity; it is also on the leading edge of the latest telecom technology developments, including around 6G; with its highly urbanized, tech-savvy population, South Korea also enjoys very high communication levels across all segments – fixed-line telephony (44% at the start of 2022), fixed broadband (46%), mobile voice and data (144%), and mobile broadband (120%); the performance of the mobile sector is on a par with other developed markets around the region, but it’s the wire line segment that allows South Korea to stand out from the crowd; this is partly a reflection of the large proportion of its population who live in apartment buildings (around 60%), making fiber and apartment LAN connections relatively easy and cost-effective to deploy; the government’s Ultra Broadband convergence Network (UBcN) had aimed to reach 50% adoption by the end of 2022, but that target may be a few more years away; fixed-line teledensity is also at a very high level compared to most of the rest of the world, but it has been on a sharp decline from a rate of 60% ten years ago; on the mobile front, users have enthusiastically migrated from one generation of mobile platform to the next as each iteration becomes available; there also doesn’t appear to be any great concern about there being a lack of demand for 5G in South Korea (when the country is already well supported by 4G networks), with 30% of all subscribers having already made the switch; part of the reason behind the rapid transition may be the subsidized handsets on offer from each of the MNOs and the MVNOs (2022) |
Domestic | Fixed-line approximately 45 per 100 and mobile-cellular services 141 per 100 persons; rapid assimilation of a full range of telecommunications technologies leading to a boom in e-commerce (2021) |
International | Country code - 82; landing points for EAC-C2C, FEA, SeaMeWe-3, TPE, APCN-2, APG, FLAG North Asia Loop/REACH North Asia Loop, KJCN, NCP, and SJC2 submarine cables providing links throughout Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia and US; satellite earth stations - 66 (2019) |
Telephones - fixed lines | |
Total subscriptions | 22.81 million (2022 est.) |
Subscriptions per 100 inhabitants | 44 (2022 est.) |
Telephones - mobile cellular | |
Total subscriptions | 76.992 million (2022 est.) |
Subscriptions per 100 inhabitants | 149 (2022 est.) |
Want to know more about South Korea? Check all different factbooks for South Korea below.