Less than one-fifth of Koreans were using feature phones in 2015, according to government data on Monday.

The number of feature phone users came to 9.99 million as of the end of December 2015, compared to the 12.1 million posted a year earlier, said the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. That was less than one-fifth of Korea’s 50 million-plus population.

At the same time, the number of smartphone users jumped 3 million over the cited period to reach 43.6 million

A feature phone is an older style cellphone model that largely predated smartphones, the main functions of which are limited to calls, text messaging and very basic Internet services. The devices are still used by older subscribers and some spendthrift customers.

Industry watchers expect the number of smartphone users to further climb on a fall in handset prices triggered by a rise in price-competitive models rolled out mostly by Chinese manufacturers.

One example is Huawei’s Y6 smartphone, which is being sold by LG Uplus. Sales for the Y6, which started in December last year, hit 20,000 units last month. The device can be purchased for almost nothing with a mobile carrier discount.

A local dollar-shop chain also started off-line sales of the Xiaomi Redmi 3 late last month. Its initial sales volume of 300 units sold out in less than an hour.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)