What factors make portal sites perform well in Korea?

Abstract

As the market size of portal business increases, the competition among portal sites has also increased in terms of both service quality and diversity. Google is the most powerful portal site in the world, whose market share is 65.2% of the world market, but this is not the case in Korea.The purpose of this study is to find the order of importance among hierarchical-factors which affect users in their choice of portal sites. Using an AHP analysis based on survey data, the order of importance of primary factors, first, information offering, followed by, in order, entertainment & additional services, interactivity, and usability. Including sub-factors of the primary factors, the order of importance is accuracy and quickness of information offering, diversity of entertainment & additional services and an understanding of usability. The results also show that Naver and Daum are preferred to Google, implying that the main role of portal site has evolved from gateway to access to the internet for searching information to total brand sites of diverse activity, which is consistent with the ranking of the market shares noted above.