8 out of 10 Value-Added Telecom Operators Say "Difficulty in Data Utilization"... Why?

Ministry of Science and ICT, 2023 Value-Added Telecommunications Business Survey
Total Revenue 328 Trillion KRW... Platform Revenue 114 Trillion KRW

About 80% of value-added telecommunications service providers face difficulties in utilizing data. Large and medium-sized enterprises suffer from legal and regulatory constraints, while small and medium-sized enterprises struggle with a lack of specialized technology and personnel.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced the results of the '2023 Value-Added Telecommunications Service Survey' on the 19th. Among the total 17,237 value-added telecommunications service providers, a sample survey (1,501 companies) was conducted for those with capital of 100 billion KRW or more as well as those below that threshold.

The business areas of value-added telecommunications service providers were found to be 31.8% in services such as food delivery and finance, 29% in goods such as e-commerce, and 15.4% in content such as search and games.

Among value-added telecommunications service providers, 'digital platform providers' generating revenue through intermediary services accounted for 36.1% (475 companies). They were engaged in businesses such as services (35.8%), content (24.2%), and goods (18.7%).

The sales of value-added telecommunications services are estimated at 328.5 trillion KRW, of which digital platform sales are estimated at 114.4 trillion KRW.

The adoption rate of new technologies was 43.4% for value-added telecommunications service providers and 73.5% for digital platform providers, showing that platform providers are about 30 percentage points higher. The technologies used were big data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing in that order.

The difficulties faced by providers were surveyed in the order of ▲ securing the latest technology and specialized personnel ▲ burden of infrastructure costs ▲ intensified competition with global companies and big tech.

77.9% of responding companies answered that they have difficulties in utilizing data. The main difficulties were lack of specialized technology and personnel (52.3%), absence of valuable data (34.4%), burden of data management and storage costs (27.9%), and legal and regulatory constraints (24.9%).

Large and medium-sized enterprises particularly reported difficulties with legal and regulatory constraints (43.6% and 36.7%, respectively), while small and medium-sized enterprises reported difficulties with lack of specialized technology and personnel (56.2%).

A survey was also conducted on the usage patterns of app market users (542 companies) and cloud users (171 companies) among value-added telecommunications service providers.

Regarding preferred app markets by app market operators, Google Play (75.1%) ranked first, followed by App Store (16.8%), Galaxy Store (3.7%), and One Store (1.1%).

The proportion of those who would use third-party app markets and sideloading via websites if Apple allowed it was more than half (59.4%).

Among cloud users, 60.2% (multiple responses allowed) used Amazon AWS. Next were MS Azure (24%), Naver (20.5%), Google GCP (19.9%), KT (8.2%), and NHN (7%).

Among the 171 cloud users, only 31 companies (18.1%) had experience switching cloud providers, and only 7 companies (5%) had plans to switch.

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