Pantech Coming Back with Android

Pantech, the third-largest mobile phone maker in Korea, said it will introduce around 10 kinds of smartphones based on the Google-backed Android platform next year in the local and global market.

Since its release of the first smartphone, the PH-S8000T model for SK Telecom in 2005, Pantech has introduced three additional kinds of smartphones in the U.S. and Mexico: the Pantech Duo (Pantech Red Duo) and Pantech Matrix Pro.
Previously, all of Pantech�s smartphones were Microsoft Windows Mobile based, but the company will now jump onto the Android bandwagon. In the local market, Pantech plans to introduce its first Android-based smartphone in the second-quarter of next year, and then the company will add three or four kinds of Android phones. The first Pantech Android-phone will adopt a 3.7-inch AMOLED display and will support a DivX player and Wi-Fi connectivity. �We will focus on usability, likely using a regular full touch-screen phone rather than a difficult smartphone interface,� said Pantech�s spokesperson.

In the global market, Pantech�s target market will be the U.S. and Europe. As smartphones are more popular in advanced markets rather than in the local market, Pantech plans to introduce a differentiated form-factor based smartphone based on a unique design to secure multimedia and entertainment savvy consumers. Further, instead of the default user interface offered by the Android platform, Pantech plans to adopt its own enhanced solution.

In the meantime, Pantech ranks third with a 17 percent market share in the local handset market in November, while Samsung Electronics controls 50 percent and LG Electronics controls 22 percent, respectively. The gap between Pantech and LG was closer than in the previous month with Pantech gaining an additional one percent share while LG lost a one percent share.