Samsung Electronics to Release 3G Terminal with Original Chip
etienglish.com
By Kim Ik-jong
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Samsung Electronics, the world's No. 3 mobile phone maker, successfully commercialized mobile phone terminals with its original 3G chip, and will release them soon.Amid fierce competition in the global mobile phone terminal market, Samsung Electronics can now compete with its rivals that have source technologies under the same condition.Judging that it cannot maintain competitiveness by relying on a certain company for chips as the mobile communications environment is shifting from the 2G to the 3G and subsequent development in technologies, such as multi-mode, Samsung Electronics ( sec.co.kr) embarked on developing 3G original chip (project name: SCom 5000) in 2000 and commercialized it in three years, it announced on Mar. 31. Refer to page 3.
A high-ranking official of the company said, "We will begin the distribution of mobile phone terminals that adopted cdma2000 1x chip independently developed to KTF within the month," adding that it will be a significant turning point in the terminal business at home and abroad.
He also said, "The 3G chip is likely to be used not only in domestic but also export models, " adding that the company is expected to export the chip-mounted mobile phone terminals within the year.
Although it built up its brand recognition through product competitiveness, Samsung Electronics has been criticized for the lack of source technologies as it fully relied on Qualcomm for its chips. With the announcement of the chip-mounted mobile phone terminals, Samsung expects to reduce costs sizably while strengthening competitiveness in the global market.
Samsung Electronics also plans to develop WCDMA chips that are expected to represent 70% of the 3G mobile phone market and unveil mobile phone terminals using them.
The same source in the company said, "We also planned to commercialize WCDMA chip-mounted models soon, but the commercial service plan ran into a snack causing disruptions in the plan," predicting that the company will roll out the WCMA chip-mounted models soon.
Samsung Electronics developed 2G chips and supplied 1 million units of the chip-mounted terminals to the domestic market in the 90s, but it curtailed its chip business because of the relationship with Qualcomm, the sole distributor of CDMA. |
