Mobile Web usage climbs during nighttime

Internet usage through mobile devices rapidly rises between 7 p.m. in the evening and midnight, a study found on Friday.

According to Daum Communications, the country’s leading Internet software provider, the use of the mobile Web rises during the lunch hours and surges in the evening from 7 p.m. when workers usually leave their office. The portion of internetusers going online using their cell phone reached 28.5 percent of the total web traffic between 7 p.m. and 12 a.m. The usage rate of the mobile Web reaches its peak at 9 p.m. 

Koreans increasingly access the Web via handsets, spurred by the launch of Apple’s iPhone and a slew of other smartphones. The country’s mobile carriers are also scurrying to increase the number of free Wi-Fi zones and to introduce competitive data plans in an effort to boost wireless Internet usage.

A customer tries out the new iPhone 4 at the Apple store in Ginza, Tokyo, on June 24. The handset is expected to be launched in Korea this month. Bloomberg