Rapid Adoption of Smart Phones in South Korea

I'm in Seattle near the end of the AACRAO (American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officials) conference, which explains the lack of posts over the past few days.  However, during a few free minutes before my departure for SeaTac I had a chance to catch up on some reading, including an interesting article in the Chosun Ilbo documenting the extremely rapid adoption of smart phones in South Korea.  According to the article, the number of smartphone users has skyrocketed from fewer than 1 million early last year to 9.7 million or some 20 percent of all 50 million mobile phone users.  At this rate, most users will have switched to smartphones by 2015.  Furthermore, as the article notes, it is likely to become difficult to purchase the less expensive feature phones by 2013.