ABSTRACT
Korea has recently led the world in many areas. Korea launched the world’s first national 5G networks in April 2019. As of July 2023, Samsung, a Korean electronic device maker, is in second place following Apple in the global smartphone market, with a market share of 24.22%. Squid Game was a global sensation in nearly every region around the world. It was the number 1 Netflix show in 2021. However, in digital platforms, Korea’s leadership is a little different. Two platform powerhouses—the US and China—are fiercely competing for digital hegemony. Korea has become a platform battlefield where local digital platforms compete with global digital platforms. Since Korea has become a turbulent digital platform battlefield, the competitiveness of local digital platforms needs to be examined. There have been many academic discussions on digital platforms from various perspectives; however, there are not many studies that comprehensively and systematically analyze how local digital platforms are competitive against well-matched global digital platforms in a particular nation. To fill this gap, this chapter presents an overview of Korea’s digital platform ecosystem and then evaluates selected leading local and global digital platforms from the point of view of users as well as industry experts.
