Sharp Decline in Mobile Payment and Camera App Users Amid COVID-19 Impact

Samsung Pay Users Decrease by 20%... Instagram Also Drops by 9%

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] Due to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), outdoor activities have decreased, leading to a decline in users of simple payment and camera applications.

According to Mobile Index by IGAWorks, a mobile big data platform company, the average number of users of the top payment app 'Samsung Pay' in the first week of March was 2,965,170, which is about 20% lower than the 3,712,575 users in the first week of January.

'Payco' also saw a decrease of about 14%, from 259,721 users to 224,248 users during the same period, and 'LG Pay' dropped 14% from 287,852 to 248,025 users. This decline is attributed to the frozen consumer sentiment caused by COVID-19.

Additionally, as social distancing became normalized due to the spread of COVID-19, the use of social networking services (SNS) naturally decreased, which also led to a reduction in camera app usage.

The weekly average users of 'Instagram' decreased by 9%, from 6.46 million in the first week of January to 5.85 million in the first week of March. The top camera app 'Snow' showed a significant decline of 29%, dropping from 1,135,496 users to 810,200 users during the same period.