Mobile phone industry in South Korea

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The mobile phone industry in South Korea consists of domestic network infrastructure provision and the production of consumer mobile handsets.

History

Car phone era

In 1984, Korea Mobile Telecommunications Service,

]

Mobile phone era

Consumer devices

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2023)

Network and service developments

• 1988, Korea Mobile Telecommunications Service started South Korea's first mobile phone service.[1]
• 1996, Korea Mobile Telecommunications Service started the world's first cdmaOne service in Incheon. In the same year, Korea Telecom Freetel (KTF), which later merged with Korea Telecom, its parent company, began its service.^[2]
• 1997, Korea Mobile Telecommunications Service was sold to
  LG Telecom started its business.^[3]
• 2002, Korea Telecom Freetel merged Internet companies invested by
  Samsung Group and became KTF
  .

In 2009 KT was the first network to introduce the iPhone.^[4] The origins of South Korea's domestic smartphone production industry can be traced to Samsung's release of their first smartphone, a reaction to Apple's iPhone, which was well-received by the South Korean population.^{[citation needed]}

Later, as the smartphone sector kept growing, South Korean LG Electronics also participated in this competition. Compared to Apple and Samsung, LG had a different business strategy, which was to make devices with lower price and better functionality rather than with high specs; however, as LG started to focus on better camera functions and screen quality with better pixel, their cost of goods started to increase but the sales was not so much improved.^[5]

As the result of continuing net loss in smart phone business, LG announced its decision to exit this area in April, 2021. Up until this time, Apple and Samsung has remained the two companies with the largest market shares, and LG had only cornered a small portion of the market. Apple knew this event was a chance to increase their sales in South Korea and tried to take this opportunity by renting LG’s display spaces in markets.^[6][7] Samsung also acted by trying to tempt LG smartphone users by offering them good deals on their new Samsung phones, for example, by running trade-in events for used LG smartphones.^{[citation needed]} Competition between the two manufacuters in the South Korean market is still on-going.^{[citation needed]}

Network and service developments

• 2009, KTF was merged with Korea Telecom.
• 2010, LG Telecom, LG Dacom, LG Powercom were merged into LG U Plus.
• 2012, KT shut down its 2G services and migrated to 3G network.
• 2020, SKT shut down its 2G services and migrated to newer generation networks.
• new technology was developed such as WiBro and LTE ^{[citation needed]}

Handsets

Domestic production

Current South Korean producers of mobile phones include:

• Samsung Electronics
• KT Tech

Former South Korean producers of mobile phones include:

• Pantech Curitel - ceased production in 2017^[8]
• LG Electronics - ceased production in 2021^[9]

Market share (domestic and imported handsets)

Samsung and Apple have the largest market shares in Korea.^{[citation needed]}

Mobile phone service providers

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (August 2023)

There are three mobile phone service providers and they are currently deploying their 5G networks.

• Korea Telecom (KT) absorbed KT Freetel (KTF) in 2002 and offers services using HSPA and LTE
  networks.

• SK Telecom (SKT) of SK Group also offers services using HSPA and LTE networks. In 2020 the CDMA2000 network was shut down.

As of 2004^[update] the market shares of the three companies were believed to be: SK Telecom's 50 percent, Korea Telecom's 30 percent and LG Telecom's 20 percent.^[10]

Official bodies and technical partnerships

In South Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) is the telecommunications authority.

The

Regarding the Korean mobile phone industry's overseas experiences, SK Telecom has helped the first mobile phone service companies in Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, etc. In China, it helped China Unicom's CDMA implementation, both technically and financially.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Telecommunications in South Korea
• List of telephone operating companies
• List of mobile network operators
• List of mobile phone makers
• Culture of South Korea: Cellular Phones

References