Cell phones are now common in the developed world, in what can be considered the ‘Information Age.’ Interestingly, in North Korea, more and more people are also managing to buy cell phones. Special Economic Reporter Kang Mi Jin is here to talk with us about this trend.
We are in an era in which it is easy to call someone in England or the U.S. from South Korea. As time goes on, technology is making life increasingly more convenient for the average person.
South Korea’s mobile communications industry only began in the 1980s. Now it’s hard to find someone who isn’t using a smartphone when you ride the bus or take the subway.
Data shows that only 80 South Koreans owned a cell phone in the 1980s, but now there are more cell phone subscriptions than there are people. What’s more, 46 million South Koreans are signed up for high-speed internet services like LTE. South Korea has truly become a leader in mobile and internet technology.
North Korea is vastly different from the networked and connected South. But that is starting to change. Today, we aim to explore this topic in further detail.
We’ve heard that North Korean cellphone subscribers are on the rise. Can you give us more details about this trend?
Even as recently as early 2010, North Korea had some of the world’s lowest cell phone subscription rates, lower than the world’s poorest nations. At the end of 2011, Voice of America quoted an international communications firm indicating that subscription rates in the country were on the rise. The report claimed that 1.77% of all North Koreans had a cell phone subscription. Through a business deal with an Egyptian company called Orascom, the North Korean authorities created a service called Koryo Link, and claimed 700,000 subscribers.
According to Orascom’s data, there were 530,000 subscribers in March 2011, and 660,000 three months later by June 2011. It is also known that the number of subscribers has subsequently continued to climb, with Orascom claiming 3.7 million in January 2017. Observers have pointed out that the continued increase has likely improved people’s lives appreciably.
What kind of procedures are involved in purchasing a cell phone subscription? And what is the price range for phones on the market today?
For a subscription application, the user has to receive approval from both the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of People’s Security. Then the user has to get a signature from the local police. The procedures are strict and difficult. Getting all of the signatures requires bribes, so that raises the cost of phone ownership in North Korea.
Connecting a new cell phone usually requires about one carton of “Cat” brand cigarettes and a nice bottle of alcohol as bribes. On the application form, the subscriber needs to write their name, date of birth, gender, job, name of factory assignment, house phone number, and resident’s number. This is similar to the application process in South Korea, but the requirement to get permission from local law enforcement and list one’s profession are different.
New cell phone models are currently being released in North Korea. In 2011, a cheap phone cost about 770,000 KPW and a more expensive one went for about 1.24 million KPW [for reference, 1 million KPW is approximately US $124.] In 2013, the cheapest models sold for approximately 960,000 KPW, while the more expensive ones sold for 1.44 and 2.4 million KPW. The range increased again in 2014 from 1.8 million KPW for cheaper models and 2.3 million KPW for the expensive ones. Then smartphones appeared on the market and sold for about 3.5 million KPW. The range is now 2 million KPW for the cheaper ones and 3.3 million KPW for an Arirang smartphone.
The best models on the market right now – including the newly released Pyongyang Touch phone – are estimated to sell for about 5.5 million KPW. That’s enough money to buy over a ton of rice.
That’s a lot for the cost of one phone. Why do you think that the numbers are increasing despite the prohibitive cost?
Sources indicate that university students purchase cell phones despite the cost as a way of showing off. As the private economy in North Korea continues to grow, it’s becoming more common to judge people by their wealth, so even poorer families try to pool their money to buy a phone to share.
I recently met a defector who had just finished her three-month period at the Hanawon resettlement facility [a government facility that helps North Korean defectors to integrate upon arriving in South Korea]. She told me that televisions and “recorders” [the collective reference in North Korea for VHS, CD and DVD players] attracted interest in the past, but cell phones are the number one product now. Only locals know if you have a tv at home. But everyone in the street sees if you have a cellphone, so people tend to buy that before they buy a tv.
Cell phones have become an indicator of social class in North Korea. But as the market continues to grow, the utility of cell phones for business is another factor that explains their increasing popularity in North Korea.
