Adults in South Korea are set to spend an average of two hours and three minutes on their smartphones each day this year, accounting for 28.6 per cent of their daily media time.

According to eMarketer, South Korea will continue to have the highest daily share of non-voice mobile time in the world and, by the end of 2019, smartphone usage will account for more than 30 per cent of total daily media time in the East Asian nation.

“We expect to see smartphone time rising further in the coming years as the telecom operators race to be the first in the world to deploy a 5G commercial rollout [expected in 2019],” said Chris Bendtsen, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer. “In addition, while tech-savvy South Koreans are already high consumers of mobile news, this years Winter Olympics will further increase smartphone time.”

Smartphone penetration is expected to reach 74 per cent of the population this year, putting South Korea joint fifth with Singapore in these terms. This increased penetration is being driven by the widespread availability of high-speed mobile broadband, as well as the popularity of social media, messaging, mobile video, and gaming.