Koreans May Buy 2 Mln Mobile Phones to Beat Ban, Paper Says
--From AOL.-- Cooters
Seoul, May 25 (Bloomberg) -- Korean mobile phone service providers and handset makers are forecasting that new subscribers and existing users will buy as many as 2 million new mobile phones ahead of the June 1 deadline for the ending of the payment of handset subsidies by service providers, the Korea Economic Daily reported, citing unidentified industry sources. The report said that yesterday morning, following the announcement of the ban on subsidies by the government, retail outlets of the four service providers -- SK Telecom Co., Korea Telecom Freetel Corp., LG Telecom Co. and Hansol M.com Co. -- had twice as many customers as usual, and they received 10,000 new subscriptions, three times the normal amount. Retailers will accept orders for phones, which they will fill after the deadline if they run out of handsets, the report said.
LG Information and Communication Co. and shares of other domestic handset makers, as well as Qualcomm Inc. of the U.S., which licenses the mobile technology most widely used in Korea, fell on the news.
(Korea Economic Daily, p.15, 5/25, www.hankyung.com)
May/24/2000 19:26 ET |
