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The mobile phone industry in South Korea consists of domestic network infrastructure provision and the production of consumer mobile handsets.
In 1984, Korea Mobile Telecommunications Service, Korea Telecom's subsidiary which later became SK Telecom, started its mobile communications service with the car phone.[ citation needed]
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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]
Current South Korean producers of mobile phones include:
Former South Korean producers of mobile phones include:
Samsung and Apple have the largest market shares in Korea.[ citation needed]
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There are three mobile phone service providers and they are currently deploying their 5G networks.
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]
In South Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) is the telecommunications authority.
The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) supports Qualcomm's research and development of CDMA and CDMA2000 technology.
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]