The number of people who use feature phones has been decreasing fast in South Korea, government and industry data showed Wednesday, reflecting a consumer trend shift to smartphones.

The number of feature phone owners stood at 10.8 million at the end of August, down nearly 15 percent from 12.7 million 10 months earlier, according to the data by mobile carriers and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.

Feature phones, also known as "dumb phones," refer to older cellphone models before smartphones, whose main functions are limited to calls, text messaging and very basic Internet services. 

They were the mainstream mobile phones in the market led by Nokia until the late 2000s, when Research In Motion's first smartphone BlackBerry rocked global consumers.

Market watchers said the overall number of feature phone users in South Korea could further drop to below the 10 million mark, given that it's falling by an average 190,000 every month.

"Those who've stuck to feature phones are less likely to keep using them any longer since handset makers have been churning out low-end smartphones," an industry watcher said.

The figure for smartphone users in South Korea reached 43.4 million as of end-August, up by 2.2 million from 10 months ago, according to the data. (Yonhap)