YouTube is South Korea’s top-used mobile app for not only streaming online videos, but also listening to music, according to new survey results recently released by the Korea Internet Corporations Association.

The “Mobile Service User Behavior Survey” was jointly carried out by the internet business body and Research & Research. It asked 1,000 people between the ages of 15 and 60 about their mobile service usage patterns and app preferences.

According to the survey, the top mobile app activities users engaged in were “watching videos” (87.5 percent), “listening to music” (73.9 percent), “using financial services” (78.9 percent) and “product purchases” (79.5 percent). 

Unsurprisingly, YouTube was found to be the most popular app for streaming videos, including movies and TV programs. And the app’s dominance appears to have now expanded into the music realm, as more people were found to prefer YouTube over music streaming services for listening to music.

Around 43 percent of the respondents surveyed said YouTube was the “main app they used for enjoying music.” Melon, Korea’s most popular music streaming app owned by Kakao, came in second with a 28.1 percent usage rate.

The remainder of the usage preferences were scattered among KT’s Genie Music (7.7 percent), Naver Music (6.5 percent) and Apple Music and Samsung Music (4.6 percent), the survey showed.

To capitalize rising music demands, YouTube is planning to roll out a new music streaming service -- a revamped version of the existing YouTube Music app -- in selected global markets this week.

So far, YouTube Music has functioned like a standard music streaming service, available to users for free with ads enabled. While retaining this free version, YouTube is set to introduce a premium, ad-free version of YouTube Music under a subscription fee model.

Meanwhile, Koreans spend an average of 4 hours and 47 minutes using the internet per day. Cable-based internet usage was slightly higher at 51.8 percent, compared to mobile internet service usage at 48.2 percent.

The top reason for cable-based internet service usage was the “need for a bigger screen,” while the top reason for using mobile-based internet services was “being able to use the internet anywhere.”

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)