re: Samsung and LGE ‘co-opetition’
* LGE pushed KT to focus on WCDMA for the World Cup, while Samsung pushed SKT to trial cdma2000 at the sporting event.
LGE:
* According to Gartner Dataquest KGE is the eighth largest mobile handset maker globally in 2001.
* LGE’s CDMA handsets serve Korea, the US, Latin America, and China.
* Last year, LGE shipped 11 million handsets globally, a 53% increase over the previous year. Mobile handset sales reached 2,415 billion won (US$2.01 billion) in 2001, and up to Q1’02, LGE recorded 783.1 billion won (US$0.65 billion) in handset sales, a 55.7% increase over the same period last year.
* This year, LGE's GSM handset exports are likely to be ramped up to countries such as China and Europe.
* LGE shipped 236,000 GSM handsets last year, but he expects this figure to rise to over two million by next year.
>> Mobile Aspiration
Clement Teo
July 5, 2002
CMPNet Asia
The recent World Cup was a South Korean triumph of sorts. The Korean soccer team’s accomplishments had been a combination of determination, stamina, and national pride.
The North Asians had clinched a hard-fought fourth placing (to date, the highest any Asian country has ever climbed) in the international soccer domain, but more importantly, they showed the rest of the world that South Korea, too, is a world beater.
More poignant, though, was the fact that the World Cup was also an avenue for Korea’s best telcos to showcase next-generation mobile technology, from the handsets to the networks, from the services to the applications.
The Korea spirit of innovation, speed, and determination is well and truly alive, thanks to companies such as Korea Telecoms (www.kt.co.kr), SK Telecoms (SKT), Samsung (www.samsung.com), and LG Electronics (LGE, www.lge.co.kr).
While Samsung has enjoyed greater visibility in the international arena, LGE is no wallflower either. The electronics manufacturing firm is jostling Samsung and other international players in the telecoms space, both domestically and globally.
LGE operates with 72 subsidiaries around the world, staffed by 64,000 employees, and the company currently runs four broad businesses: digital display and media, digital appliances, mobile handsets, and information and communication systems.
At the World Cup itself, LGE was the sole supplier of the network and handsets to KT ICOM’s WCDMA trial service. Applications such as video-on-demand, multimedia message service (MMS), colour-code services and roaming dominated the KT ICOM’s trial services menu.
According to Yon Chul Huem, CTO and head of UMTS System Research Centre, LGE, they edged out Ericsson (www.ericsson.com), Nortel Networks (www.nortelnetworks.com), and Samsung to stage the trial. If they prove successful, Yon expects KT ICOM to launch commercial 3G services by 2003.
Yon also says that Samsung and LGE are ‘co-opetitors’—LGE pushed KT to focus on WCDMA for the World Cup, while Samsung pushed SKT to trial cdma2000 at the sporting event. However, SKT will likely launch its WCDMA services in two to three years, as the mobile operator sees this as their ‘future cash cow’, says Yon.
Mobile handsets are also seen as a strategy to gain a stronger branding and foothold on the global stage, says Paul Bae, vice-president, Product Planning, LGE CDMA Handsets Lab, although LGE’s mainstay is based around CDMA handsets.
According to Gartner Dataquest (www.dataquest.com), KGE is the eighth largest mobile handset maker globally in 2001. And Bae wants to grow the unit to become the No.1 CDMA handset maker by 2004, and achieve a Top 5 ranking in total mobile handsets shipped by 2005.
Already, LGE’s CDMA handsets serve Korea, the US, Latin America, and China. Last year, LGE shipped 11 million handsets globally, a 53% increase over the previous year. Mobile handset sales reached 2,415 billion won (US$2.01 billion) in 2001, and up to Q1’02, LGE recorded 783.1 billion won (US$0.65 billion) in handset sales, a 55.7% increase over the same period last year (see chart).
This year, Bae reveals that their GSM handset exports are likely to be ramped up to countries such as China and Europe. LGE shipped 236,000 GSM handsets last year, but he expects this figure to rise to over two million by next year.
Bae expects demand to come primarily from China. He also discloses that they have established a new organisation in the Mainland, called LG Electronics China, to operate a manufacturing and R&D centre focused on the CDMA and GSM handset market. OEM partnerships with Eastcom (www.eastcom.com) and Legend should help LG penetrate the market, he says.
With full backing from LG group chairman Koo Bon Moo, and an aggressive branding campaign underway, South Koreans may soon have more than World Cup achievements to cheer about. <<
- Eric - |
