Smartphone penetration hits new high, best in the world

Korea had the largest smartphone penetration rate in the world last year, according to data from U.S. market researcher Strategy Analytics released yesterday.

In Korea, about 6.8 people out of 10 had smartphones last year, 4.6 times the global average of 1.5. The second-highest ranking country is Norway at 55 percent.

In 2011, Korea had a 38.3 percent penetration rate, while Hong Kong took the No. 1 spot at 46.7 percent, followed by Sweden at 39.7 percent and Singapore at 38.4 percent. The market researcher said Korea’s smartphone penetration rate was boosted by the adoption of super-fast, fourth-generation long-term evolution (LTE) connectivity earlier than other advanced countries. Korea is the world’s most wired nation. Korea’s smartphone penetration rate was 0.7 percent in 2007 and jumped to 14 percent in 2010. Strategy Analytics predicts Korea will again be No. 1 with 79.5 percent this year and its figure will reach 88.9 percent by 2017.