[ET News] ROI of Korea IT industry Jumps Over BRICs
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15201
writer
IDG Korea
date
2008-02-25
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Interview / Patrick J. McGovern, Chairman of IDG,
"We created a $100 million Korea venture fund last October and we will raise this fund to $350 million in 4 years."
These are the words of Patrick J. McGovern, Chairman and Founder of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading media and Research Company, when he visited Korea.
While he was a student at MIT, McGovern worked part-time for "Computer and Automation", the first computer magazine in the US. He founded IDG in 1964, beginning his career in the media and research business. According to FORBES magazine, he is ranked the 64th richest American, with a net worth of $4.7 billion. He donated $350 million to MIT and established the "McGovern Institute for Brain Research" under his own name.
Recently IDG made an investment agreement with a LCD equipment company in Korea, and expects to invest $1 million in the company in February.
McGovern visited Korea in order to announce his investment plan to Korea. He stated, "After 10 years, the value of the companies we invested in will reach $6 billion and are expected to create 3,000 new employment opportunities."
Based on the deep belief of McGovern, Korea is one of the important target countries along with China and India because the people of Korea are well educated, entrepreneurial-minded, and extremely diligent.
"Even if world's leading investment companies like JP Morgan are mainly targeting BRICs, based on my experience of over 40 years in the IT industry, I believe I should focus on Korea. In terms of ROI, I believe the Korean IT industry surpasses BRICs."
IDG will separately invest $50 million in IDG Korea in order to expand the domestic IT media and conference business. It will be launching the IT media web portal later this year, holding brand exhibitions like Linuxworld, E4All.
IDG had 2007 revenues of $3 billion, publishing over 300 magazines and newspaper such as Computerworld, Infoworld, and Pcworld. This helped IDC, the world's leading IT Research Company, and the venture investment business.
On the issue of convergence between media, McGovern said, "In 2005, 70% of revenues from the IDG media business came from the publication portion. On the contrary, in 2010, it is expected to rapidly decline to 30%. But as long as the audience wants to subscribe in offline media, we're going to keep publishing offline magazines, even if online media will be the winner of the publication business."
