[THE INVESTOR] Preinstalled smartphone apps have been a bone of contention since the early days of smartphones. The apps fitted on smartphones regardless of consumers’ preferences have often faced flak for creating a range of nuisances, such as unnecessary consumption of power and storage space and eliminating the right of consumer choice.

Google, which dominates the world’s smartphone operating system market, has been bashed for requiring global phone-makers to preinstall a suite of the firm’s mobile apps -- Russia recently fined the US firm for abusing its dominant position in the OS market.



Due to pressure from governments around the world, the internet giant has recently cut down the number of compulsory smartphone apps and given users the option to get rid of the preinstalled apps.

Exploiting their dominant market position, South Korea’s top mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus have also been trying to grow their own smartphone applications by preinstalling their own apps on smartphones.

In a report compiled by market research firm WiseApp in June, smartphones come with an average of 21 preinstalled apps run by the three mobile network operators.

“Considering the fact that more than 45.2 million are out there, the mobile network firms are taking advantage of their dominance in the mobile network sector to nurture their own apps, creating an unlevel playing field for their rivals and smaller players,” said an industry official, who did not wish to be named.

Those preinstalled mobile apps include music and video streaming, mobile wallet, navigation and camera services.

SK Telecom’s music streaming service MelOn, which the firm sold to Kakao this year, was able to top the local mobile music services sector by having the MelOn app preinstalled on smartphones running on the firm’s network.

MelOn boasts 15 million subscribers, most of whom also subscribe to the mobile network services of SK Telecom.

Both SK Telecom and KT were able to secure an upper hand in the smart wallet segment through similar strategies as well.

For many smaller-size app operators, competing with the mobile carriers, which can, at their will, have their own apps preinstalled on nearly all smartphones in Korea, is an uphill battle.

Critics also have claimed that preinstalled apps take a toll on smartphone users.

“Those preinstalled apps take up smartphone memory and can consume mobile data for keeping the apps updated without users’ awareness,” said Choi Jae-hong, a professor from Gangneung-Wonju National University, adding they also force users to go through bothersome processes to find and delete the unnecessary apps.

Dissatisfied with the unfair market conditions in Korea, some mobile app operators have tried to seek opportunities in other global markets.

Yap, a beacon services firm and operator of a Yelp-like restaurant review app, has been trying to expand its business in global markets from the outset due to the unlevel playing field in the Korean app market.

“Yap has joined hands with Vietnam’s leading internet services firm VNG to roll out a mobile app in the local market and beef up partnerships in China and Singapore in the second half this year,” a Yap official said.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)