Pantech to Challenge Apple in Korea
By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
Pantech, the nation's smallest handset manufacturer trailing Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, has vowed to challenge Apple's iPhone in South Korea's smartphone sector, a senior company executive said.
By reiterating the rising popularity of smartphones that run on the Google-backed Android platform in the world’s most wired country, Pantech is planning to sell 1 million of the devices by the end of this year.
"We forecast Android phones will beat iPhones from the latter half of this year in terms of total shipments as Android phones are being more widely used," Lee Yong-june, who handles Pantech's domestic marketing, said in a press conference held in its headquarters in northern Seoul, Wednesday.
"It's evident more Android phones will roll out during the second and third quarter, justifying our ambitious bet on the models," Lee said, adding consumers will give more credit to the Android phones.
Last, domestic sales marked 3.1 million out of 9.5 million sold worldwide, a company spokesman said.
Steve Park, a representative of Apple's South Korean branch declined to comment on Lee's remarks, citing the sensitivity of the issue.
The press conference was held to unveil Pantech's first-ever Android smartphone dubbed "Sirius."
The mobile is equipped with 3.7-inch AM OLED screen and also has the 1GHz Snapdragon processor provided by U.S. chip giant Qualcomm Inc.
Talks With AT&T, KDDI
By confirming a plan to actively ride on the "Android wave" with the announcement of more models in the latter half of the year, Lee said Pantech has been in talks with KT Corp., the nation's second-biggest mobile carrier, to ship its Android phones.
When asked about its overseas business strategy, if any, Park Chang-jin, the company's executive vice president, said Pantech has already contacted AT&T of the United States and KDDI of Japan to introduce its Android phones.
"We've filed a proposal to AT&T and KDDI, respectively, for further business deals," Park said, without elaborating further.
Pantech, which is known for its SKY-branded handset, is conducting international business mainly in Japan and China. But its presence is not threatening enough to compete with bigger vendors.
South Korea's telecom and handset majors have been worried over their "bottom lines" in smartphones, which have been hit by iPhone's consistent popularity since late last year, and are now massively producing Android phones and launching huge promotions.
Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are lowering their portion of Microsoft's Windows Mobile-equipped devices in a strategy shift, while SK Telecom and KT are expanding their lineups of smartphones to run on Android.
The Android platform, developed by a cross-industry alliance led by Internet giant Google, is based on open source Linux software that enables greater flexibility for programmers building applications and has features tailored to handsets.
Android is open and free to all handset makers, while Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion (RIM) keep a hold on their operating systems.