Market researcher Idate has released a report on the South Korean broadband market. SK Telecom had almost 2.5 million HSDPA subscribers in August last year while KTF aims to have switched 50 percent of its subscribers to HSDPA by the end of this year and 100 percent by 2012, according to Idate reports. Both operators are also rolling-out WiBro, the country's own mobile WiMAX standard. KT aims to sign-up 200,000 WiBro subscribers by the end of this year and 3.1 million by 2010. The company had 21,000 subscribers at the end of June last year. The country further boasts some 6.5 million mobile TV viewers. There are two mobile TV systems in South Korea: S-DMB, launched in May 2005 by SKT subsidiary, TuMedia, and T-DMB, introduced by terrestrial TV channels in December 2005. In May 2007, there were 1.1 and 5.3 million subscribers, respectively, to these services. The difference can be explained chiefly by the fact that T-DMB is financed by advertising, whereas S-DMB carries a monthly subscription of about EUR 11.
