More stock investors doing trading via smartphones

SEOUL, Jan. 4 (Yonhap) -- Nearly 40 percent of last year's stock trading in the secondary KOSDAQ market was done on smartphones, gradually phasing out transactions through computers and telephones, data showed Thursday.

A daily average turnover of 291.48 million shares, or 39.6 percent of the total, on the tech-laden KOSDAQ was generated over smartphones, up 3.5 percentage points from the year before, according to statistics from the Korea Exchange. Transactions via the gadget have been increasing from 2.8 percent in 2009 to 4.1 percent in 2010, 9.7 percent in 2011 and to 16.1 percent in 2012. They reached 20.3 percent in 2013, 24.3 percent in 2014 and 30.1 percent in 2015.

Smartphone stock trading for the main KOSPI market was not far behind, recording 34 percent last year with a daily average turnover of 115.6 million shares. The latest number is up from 2.4 percent in 2009, 3.5 percent in 2010, 8.5 percent in 2011, 15 percent in 2012, 19.3 percent in 2013, 21.5 percent in 2014, 27.3 percent in 2015 and 31.7 percent in 2016.

Securities companies have been encouraging customers to use their handsets to do their trading, many of them offering lower transaction fees as an incentive for investors who do so.

Trading through other means, such as a home trading system and an automated phone system, is dropping, according to the same data. Home trading for KOSDAQ stocks last year accounted for 50.6 percent of the total, making it still the dominant means of transactions. But the number is significantly down from 86 percent in 2009, the data showed.

Home trading for KOSPI shares last year was 42.7 percent, down from 73.4 percent in 2009.

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