As of the end of June 2016, the number of mobile connections in South Korea reached a record of 60 million.

Mobile phone subscription reached 54.3 million, 2.2% up from a year ago. Given the nation’s population of 52 million, the mobile market is already fully saturated.

During the same period of time, the number of  IoT connections has also increased to 4.8 million by 24.0%, substantially driving the increase in mobile connections. This year, there has been an average increase of 100,000 connections in IoT each month.

IoT connections have been on the rise – starting from 3.0 million in 2013, to 3.5 million in 2014 (up by 14.2%), and then up by 23.4% in 2015, showing a fast increase in growth rate.

The growth trend was most noticeable in wearable and vehicle control sectors. The wearable sector alone saw a more than 20-fold increase in just two years, from just 50,000 in 2014 to 610,000 in 2016.  

Currently, IoT connections account for 8.0% of the entire mobile connections.

In the first half of the year, SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ rolled out their IoT-dedicated networks, and now they all plan to release various IoT services in the second half of the year. 

The IoT market in the nation is forecasted to grow even further this year and on.