`Long-Tail Phones Make Noise
By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
The ``long-tail'' business applies not only to the online market but also to the physical market including the foremost consumer gadget _ the cell phone.
South Korean handset manufacturers said Monday that a number of niche models on the cell phone market are gaining importance against top-selling phones.
Long tail refers to a host of niche products, of which the collective market share can rival that of a handful of blockbusters. High-tech guru, Chris Anderson, coined the term in 2004.
``A couple of popular cell phones have carved out a significant chunk of our sales and our promotions are mostly about those models,'' said a spokesman at LG Electronics, the world's fifth-largest phone vendor.
``Yet, there are also many other niche products catering to specific demands of end users. They are combining to become a mounting portion of our sales,'' the spokesman said.
He picked the mobile broadcasting terminal, the LB1700, as an example of a long-tail phone that sells steadily with an affordable price and moderate functionality.
The model, which lets people on the go see TV programs, was released last year with a price tag of 396,000 won. It has sold in not so massive quantities but steadily and gradually.
Samsung Electronics, the global No. 3 player, also concurs on the growing role of mid-string handsets, which typically have a long life cycle.
Currently, roughly 150 phones are on sale in the local handset market with many of them being released in 2005 or early 2006.
``The life cycle of pricey star phones is short. They sell well for some time after they debut but at a point they just disappear,'' said Lee Dong-hwan, an analyst at Daishin Securities.
``By contrast, the life cycle of inexpensive mid-tier phones is longer. They stay on the shelves of shops or online shopping lists longer and continue to contribute to sales,'' he said.
As an editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, Anderson created the term long tail in 2004 and published a bestseller later with the same title.
``This shift (to the long tail) is a fragmentation of cultures from one-size-fits-all to one-size-fits-one. We have rooms for everything,'' he said at the Seoul Digital Forum held here in May.