Smartphone penetration for users aged 60-years old and above in South Korea spiked in 2024 while the rate for all age groups rose 0.5 percentage points year-on-year to 95.3 per cent, Korea Communications Commission (KCC) data showed.

Adoption in the 60-years and over group grew 12.7 percentage points to 60.7 per cent and the figure for users aged 70 and above by 7.6 percentage points to 27.2 per, nearly doubling over the past two years.

Counterpoint Research senior analyst Kang Minsoo told Mobile World Live his team was surprised by the rise, attributing it to people in the age group recognising the smartphone as crucial.

Kang noted since overall smartphone adoption is so high, there is little room for growth in any other age group.

A study in 2024 found the most commonly used smartphone apps among users aged 65 to 79 were search, news and messenger services.

More than half were unable to install or delete apps by themselves, research by a team from the Department of Geriatric Medicine and the Department of Family Medicine at Bounding Seoul National University Hospital showed.

The KCC found the average daily smartphone screen time of all users rose by 6 minutes to two-hours and six-minutes.

Smartwatch adoption rose less than 1 percentage point to 12.9 per cent.

KCC conducted interviewed 8,316 male and female respondents aged 13-years and above.