Domestic Cloud Usage Rate Surpasses 20%... Paid Services and Terminations Narrow Choices

User's Cloud Service Usage Share (Based on First Priority)
[Captured from KISDI Report]

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Eun-mo] The usage rate of personal cloud services in South Korea has surpassed 20%. However, as Google Cloud has moved to a paid model and the services of the three major mobile carriers have been discontinued, consumers' choices appear to be narrowing.

According to the 'Cloud Service Usage Trends and Status' report by the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI) on the 14th, the Korean Media Panel Survey conducted last year with 10,302 domestic respondents showed that the usage rate of personal cloud services was 20.0%.

The cloud service usage rate, which was around 5.0% in 2012, rapidly grew to 11.2% in 2015 and 19.2% in 2018, entering the 20% range for the first time last year. By age group, the usage rate was highest among those in their 20s at 45.0%, followed by those in their 30s (36.7%), 40s (25.2%), under 20 (18.2%), and 50s (10.5%), showing steady growth across all age groups.

The most competitive player in the domestic personal cloud market was Naver, which has consistently ranked first since the 2012 survey, with a usage rate reaching 55.2% last year. SKT Cloudberry (12.5%), Google Drive (12.1%), KT U Cloud (6.2%), and Apple iCloud (5.9%) followed.

Except for Naver, the influence of foreign companies such as Google and Apple is increasing. In the 2012 survey, the combined usage rate of the three telecom companies?KT (15.0%), LG Uplus (14.7%), and SKT (10.4%)?exceeded 40%, but it dropped to 32.8% in 2016 (SKT 15.0%, KT 11.0%, LGU+ 6.8%) and further to 21.7% in 2020 (SKT 12.5%, KT 6.2%, LGU+ 3.0%). Meanwhile, Google Drive's usage rate grew from 4.0% in 2016 to 12.1% in 2020, and Apple iCloud's from 2.6% in 2016 to 5.9% in 2020, increasing approximately two to three times.

Although personal cloud usage rates have increased, the available cloud service options are decreasing. Google recently began charging for its cloud services, and the three telecom companies, having lost competitiveness, are discontinuing their cloud services citing a 'changed market environment.' Google Photos, the photo storage service, switched to a paid service starting last month.

LG Uplus plans to terminate its personal cloud service 'U+ Box' in December this year, and SK Telecom will end its personal cloud service 'Cloudberry' on September 27. Earlier, KT discontinued its personal cloud service last year. Samsung Electronics also recently ended its Samsung Cloud service for Galaxy smartphone users and encouraged data migration to Microsoft OneDrive.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.