By Kim Yoo-chul
HTC, the Taiwan-based smartphone vendor, has been struggling to establish a significant presence in Korea.
It remains to be seen whether restoring SK Telecom as its main partner, the same carrier it had ditched for KT, will provide a breakthrough.
The company will provide its latest handset, Sensation, to SK, the country’s largest wireless carrier, as it looks to rebuild its partnership. SK Telecom has been concentrating more on getting handsets from Apple and Samsung Electronics.
HTC had provided its flagship smartphone, Desire, to KT, in an attempt to strengthen its market position in Korea but teaming up with the runner-up carrier obviously wasn’t enough to shed its also-ran status.
SK Telecom users will be able to purchase the phone at 90,000 won (about $83) on a two-year contract that charges 55,000 won per month, which is less than the carrier charges for Samsung’s Galaxy II handsets.
Jack Tong, president of HTC North Asia, admits that foreign vendors _ with the exception of Apple _ have been struggling to gain acceptance in Korea, but was confident that HTC’s presence will improve.
It remains to be seen, however, whether it will get significant backing from SK Telecom, which is concentrating most of its marketing efforts on Apple’s iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones.
HTC was the first foreign vendor to release its smartphone here, with its Touch Diamond and Touch Dual mobile Internet device released in 2007 and 2008. Last year, HTC released Desire, HD2 and Legend, but none of the handsets gained any popularity.
The release of the Sensation signifies that HTC has normalized its corporate partnership with SK Telecom months after HTC introduced the Desire through KT, SK Telecom’s bitter domestic rival, late last year.
The poor sales of the Desire in Korea appear to have soured KT’s appetite for HTC-made handsets.
``Well, we see that Sensation is a handset that could establish itself as a bestseller. But it’s hard to ignore that Korean consumers consider HTC a second-tier maker,’’ said a KT official.
``SK Telecom has high hopes for the Sensation, but we believe we will do just fine with our iPhones and Galaxy II handsets,’’ he added
Designed as a high-end product, Sensation features a 4.3-inch high-definition display, a dual-core 1.2-gigahertz processor and runs on Google’s Android 2.3 operating system.