By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
Samsung Electronics, the world's third-largest cell phone producer, hopes to team up with Italian fashion company Giorgio Armani to come up with fancy handsets.
Seoul-based Samsung said Tuesday that it had been in talks with Armani over the past few months with the aim of making the so-called ``Armani phone.''
The move follows its cross-city rival LG Electronics, the No. 5 player, which introduced a cell phone in March in cooperation with top-notch Italian fashion firm Prada.
``Our employees met Giorgio Armani officials a couple of months ago, when LG already forged a business alliance with Prada,'' Samsung spokesman Lee Seung-han said.
``The LG-Prada hook-up prompted talks between Armani and us. Since then, we have been negotiating with Armani about releasing a new model,'' he said.
But Lee refuted speculation that the two players already reached a contract to unleash Armani phones in October in European countries.
The partnerships between high-profile handset vendors and famous fashion brands started with the advent of the Prada phone, Lee admitted.
LG debuted the Prada phone in March in Europe with a price tag of 600 euros and launched the model in Singapore and Hong Kong and later in Korea.
Despite the high price, the innovatively designed handsets have sold briskly and in most markets demand has outstripped supply.
In particular, the Prada phone, incorporated with a touch-sensitive keypad, created avid Korean fans who paid $1,300 for the model at online auction sites rather than remaining on waiting lists.
``Handsets produced under the teamwork of manufacturers and fashion companies are about brand image rather than sales or profitability,'' Meritz Securities analyst Lee Dong-hwan said.
``The Prada phone and the envisioned Armani phone would drum up loyal support for LG and Samsung. That will be of great benefit for them in the long run, although not so helpful in the short term,'' he said.