Seoul – South Korea’s mobile content market shrank in 2008 due to unfair business practices between mobile-service carriers and content providers, the country’s telecom regulator said. According to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the local market for mobile-phone content, including music, gaming and video, was worth 1.9 trillion won (US$1.53 billion) in 2008, compared with an estimated 2.58 trillion won in 2007 and 2.97 trillion won in 2006. The market for mobile downloads had been growing at an annual rate of more than 15 percent from 2005 to 2007, when it peaked at 5.78 trillion won. Each of South Korea’s three mobile operators, SK Telecom, KT and LG Telecom, has control over what content appears on their mobile networks, which are less open than the internet. The commission says the South Korean government will look for measures to open the networks to content developers and allow subscribers to access the mobile downloads more freely.