South Korea's 5G honeymoon period has passed, and a wave of LTE conversion may occur in October

In order to promote 5G, South Korea initially launched a 6-month 5G trial plan and high mobile phone subsidies. However, if calculated from the commercialization of 5G in April, these user trial plans will expire in October. Whether there will be many users who cancel their 5G plans by then will become an important observation node after South Korea's 5G commercialization.

South Korean media "Korea Economy" reported that when 5G services were launched in South Korea, telecom operators, in order to seize the market, bundled 5G into high-end tariff plans and provided a 700,000 won mobile phone subsidy. Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S10 5G and LG Electronics' V50 ThinQ even became free mobile phones at one point.

With telecom operators offering multiple discounts, 5G users have increased smoothly. 69 days after the commercialization of 5G in South Korea, the number of 5G users exceeded 1 million. Telecom operators have also delivered a good report card. From the perspective of telecom operators' profitability indicators, the average revenue per user (ARPU) in the second quarter showed an upward trend, and the ARPU of 5G users was even more than 60% higher than the average ARPU. Securities industry insiders believe that the revenue of the telecom industry in the third quarter will reflect the growth of 5G users and ARPU.

However, the situation of 5G users switching back to LTE tariffs in October will become a variable factor in the development of 5G in South Korea, and it is difficult for the telecommunications industry to predict the scale of user conversion. The outside world is worried that if too many people switch, the high price of 5G, low coverage, and scarce 5G services will be exposed again.

As October approaches, many discussions on 5G to LTE have begun on Korean mobile phone forums, but many consumers are also worried about whether telecom operators will make things difficult for users who downgrade to LTE plans. For telecom companies, although they are not happy for 5G users to switch to LTE plans, there is no legal reason to stop consumers. Therefore, after the use period agreed upon by telecom operators such as SK Telecom, KT, and LG U+ with consumers expires, consumers can freely switch to LTE tariff plans.

People in the telecommunications industry said that 5G solutions are indeed more expensive than LTE solutions. In addition, since 5G coverage can only be expected to be popularized next year, it may be difficult to retain consumers who want to switch to LTE due to the lack of incentives at this stage.