(The Korea Herald) Phone salesperson Lee Geon-seok said he has been so busy with customers hoping to buy the newly released iPhone that he has not had time to eat.

He said iPhone sales reached 100 units per day at his two KT stores, accounting for around 80 percent of total handset sales there. “It’s a war. iPhone sales are explosive,” Lee told The Korea Herald.

He said his store is running short of iPhones because of strong demand. Korean customers snapped up 70,000 iPhones as of Sunday – just eight days after its release in Korea, according to a KT spokesperson.

This is rare in the Korean handset market, which has been dominated by Samsung and LG. Global handset makers such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson have posted poor sales here.

It remains to be seen whether the initial strong sales of Apple’s iPhone, driven by pent-up demand, will continue. But for now, the small gadget is rattling the country’s mobile market.

The iPhone launch appears to have hit LG harder than Samsung. Sales of LG’s flagship phone Chocolate slumped this month, and the company has few competitive smartphone models.

“Sales of the Chocolate phone are meager,” a KT spokesperson said yesterday, without giving the figure.

Top mobile carrier SK Telecom also said yesterday daily sales of the Chocolate slumped to 250 units this month, from 400 units last month.

This contrasts with Samsung’s new smartphone Omina 2, whose daily sales reached a whopping 5,000 units per day this month, SK said. SK Telecom, which does not offer the iPhone, sharply increased its subsidies for Omnia 2, to stave off the challenge from the iPhone.

The iPhone, which is offered exclusively via second-ranked KT, also posted 5,000 units of daily sales this month, according to a local report yesterday. – read more at The Korea Herald…

A model tests the three-dimensional (3D) images beamed on Samsung Electronics’ latest 55-inch liquid-crystal display (LCD) screen developed for 3D-enabled televisions. (Korea Times)

By Kim Yoo-chul, Staff Reporter, The Korea Times – South Korea’s leading electronics players are beefing up their defense against patent abuse by introducing new measures to protect their technology and reputations.

Samsung Electronics, the leader in the chip and flat-screen industries, has increased the number of its staff specializing in patent issues by 300 to 550 since 2005, according to company representatives.

It says patent-related issues have emerged as one of the company’s top concerns in the face of intensified competition among rivals in the consumer electronics industry.

A growing number of patent trolls is another problem.

These individuals or companies enforce patents as an investment to collect royalties, rather than manufacture products or delivering services based on them.

LG Electronics is planning to increase the number of its patent staff by a “certain percentage” in 2010, while LG Display, the world’s No. 2 maker of LCD panels, is also reviewing the possibility of expanding its legal affairs capability, according to industry sources.

“It’s necessary for LG to constantly expand the number of patent staff to reinforce the negotiation power in international patent lawsuits,” an LG representative said.

Samsung Electronics has been involved in a years-long patent war with Rambus in chips. At the same time, the company has been tied up in a patent litigation with Japan’s Sharp in flat-screens and Finland’s Nokia in mobile phones.

“Samsung and Sharp have many patents related to LCD technology so these kinds of lawsuits will continue to occur as long as they make TVs,” said Kim Yoo-jin, an analyst at Taurus Investment & Securities. – read more at The Korea Times…

Apple's iPhone is a big hit in its first week of release in South Korea

By Kim Tong-hyung, Staff Reporter (The Korea Times) – Samsung Electronics and Apple are about to duke it out in Korea’s emerging “smart” phone market, and it looks like local Internet company, Daum (www.daum.net), will have a role in settling the bragging rights.

Daum, which operates the eponymous Web portal that trails only Naver (www.naver.com) in online traffic, is having all of its 1,000 employees choose between the newly released Apple iPhone and Samsung’s flagship smart phone, T-Omnia II, in the company’s free phone program.

Daum is desperate to get ahead in mobile Internet services, and by providing data-enabled handsets to employees for free and paying for their data expenses for the first two years, the company is looking to source innovation in-house.

It remains to be seen which between the iPhone and T-Omnia II end up as the phone of choice for Daum employees, and Samsung seems eager to advise them on their happy headache.

According to Daum officials, Samsung sent sales personnel to Daum’s Seoul headquarters to convince the company’s employees that T-Omnia II represents the better device.

The iPhone is released by KT, the country’s second-biggest mobile operator, while T-Omnia II is pitched by SK Telecom, the top wireless carrier that has a 50-percent-plus market share.

“We thought we were getting iPhones at first, but with T-Omnia II later becoming an option, there are more things to think about,” said a Daum employee.

“In the past few years, we have been putting much emphasis on delivering mobile Internet services and Apple’s mobile Internet devices, such as the iPhone and iPod Touch, were greatly considered when we developed new applications. So there has been a buzz in anticipation of an iPhone release among us for years, but you would have to say that T-Omnia II is an impressive device in its own right.”

Although it would be over-the-top to call the event the “Judgment of Daum,” it is easy to understand why the normally unflappable Samsung is touchy about the results.

Less than a week after its release, iPhones are flying off Korean shelves and showing promise to shake the hierarchy of the local handset market where Samsung and its bitter industry rival, LG Electronics, have been enjoying a near-duopoly. – read more at The Korea Times…

Samsung's NAND flash memory chips are used in Apple's iPhone

By Kim Yoo-chul, Staff Reporter – The Korea Times – There are growing complaints in the semiconductor industry that Apple, the “smart” phone maker extraordinaire and major chip buyer, is manipulating NAND flash memory prices through its “questionable” purchasing strategies, industry sources said Sunday.

And there is not much that Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest flash memory maker, and Hynix Semiconductor, the industry’s No. 3 player, can do about Apple’s moves, as the American company increasingly gains leveraging power due to the global popularity of its iPhone handsets and other consumer electronics products.

The summary of the arguments goes as this ― Apple is contributing to the suppression in flash memory prices by ordering more chips from semiconductor makers than the amount it actually buys from them.

“Apple should certainly be blamed for deteriorating the supply and demand cycle in the global NAND flash market,” a senior industry official told The Korea Times, refusing to be named.

“Apple has asked Korean semiconductor makers to produce a certain amount of chips for its digital products, only to actually purchase a smaller volume eventually. The company doesn’t make immediate purchases, but waits until chip prices to fall to the level the company has internally targeted.”

The chip industry had hoped Apple would increase purchases of NAND flash memory chips to boost the output of iPhone and other flagship devices.

The global iPhone craze currently has Apple drenched in robust earnings.

NAND flash memory chips are primarily used in memory cards and storage drives in mobile devices, computers and other consumer electronics products.

Another industry official, also reluctant to be identified, used the words “absurd” to describe Apple’s purchasing strategies.

“Samsung and Hynix both provide chips to Apple and have less of an edge in deciding prices and volume. Apple’s strategy could hurt the industry’s health,” he said.

Both Samsung and Hynix refused to officially comment, as did officials from Apple’s Korean office.

“We already knew about this,” a Samsung official said, without elaborating further. – read more at The Korea Times…

Korea International Trade Association Vice Chairman Oh Young-ho, second from right, shows buyers around the “Big Buyer Exhibition” at COEX in southern Seoul, Thursday. / Courtesy of KITA

By Kim Hyun-cheol, Staff Reporter (Korea Times) – Around 150 buyers from 100 global companies visited South Korea to attend a joint fair to promote Korean goods, which kicked off Thursday, according to the Korea International Trade Association (KITA).

The two-day event ― “Export to China, Export to the World 2009/2010” ― is being held at the COEX Mall in southern Seoul.

KITA teamed up with China’s Alibaba.com, the world’s largest business-to-business online marketplace, to offer opportunities to market products from Korean small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Participants in the fair include 12 of the world’s 500 biggest companies selected by U.S. magazine Fortune, such as Walmart, Levis, Nestle, Best Buy and French-based international retail group Auchan.

Some Chinese conglomerates are also taking part in the exhibition, including the Vanguard Group, China’s No. 1 retail chain.

The fair is part of the joint program between KITA and Alibaba.com, which will run for a year, and aims to give Korean SMEs a better chance to export their products and open up new markets for them in China and other overseas destinations.

Also as part of the program, Alibaba.com opened a channel featuring products from Korean suppliers, the third specialty country channel launched on their Web site following China and India.

KITA estimates contracts valued at $440 million will be signed at the fair. – read more at The Korea Times…

By Kim Tae-gyu, Staff Reporter (Korea Times) – The auction for Daewoo Engineering and Construction, Korea’s third-largest builder and held by the cash-strapped Kumho Asiana Group, may fail due to lack of interest.

A source claimed Wednesday that the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), which has been touted as the top contender to buy Daewoo Construction, is indifferent to the Seoul-based builder.

‘Daewoo is not something that the ADIA is looking at. The ADIA has no interest in the firm,” said a person who is close to the sovereign-wealth fund owned by Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates.

‘For the sellers, it would be helpful to put the ADIA on the list of potential buyers to get higher prices. But the ADIA is not involved this time,” he said.

This means that the auction on Daewoo might collapse as, out of the four short-listed candidates, only the ADIA consortium had been reported to have sufficient capacity to snap up Daewoo.

‘We should wait until the deadline of the final bidding, which falls next week. But if the ADIA does not participate in the bidding, it is bad news for Kumho Asiana,” said Yoon Jin-il, an analyst at IBK Securities. – read more at The Korea Times

Samsung CDMA Phones

By Kim Yoo-chul, Staff Reporter (The Korea Times) – Samsung Electronics has sealed a new 15-year contract with Qualcomm Inc. for the cross-licensing of wireless telecom technology.

The world’s No. 2 mobile handset maker will make a down payment of $1.3 billion to Qualcomm for using the U.S. firm’s patents for third- and fourth-generation wireless technology, a Samsung spokesman said.

The deal also involves payment of running royalties, but Samsung failed to give specifics on the matter.

Qualcomm, the world’s leading producer of mobile phone chips, owns key patents in code division multiple access (CDMA) technology, one of the most widely used wireless network standards in the world.

Under the contract, Qualcomm will gain the right to use Samsung’s 57 patent licenses in mobile technology. The cross-licensing deal also includes fourth-generation wireless technology used in handset devices and base stations.

Samsung officials and a spokesman of Qualcomm’s South Korean subsidy declined to comment on the number of licenses transferred from Qualcomm.

The latest agreement is a revised version of an existing technology licensing. Usually, mobile phone makers pay between 5-5.75 percent of each handset’s price to Qualcomm in royalties. read more at The Korea Times…

Samsung is the world's leading memory chip maker

By Lee Youkyung – SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Yonhap) — Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s leading memory chipmaker, said Friday that its third-quarter earnings more than tripled from a year ago on a rise in prices of key products.

Net profit stood at 3.72 trillion won (US$3.16 billion) in the July-September period, compared with 1.22 trillion won a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Sales jumped 29.1 percent on-year to 24.86 trillion won, and operating profits doubled from a year ago to 2.77 trillion won, it said.

Shares of Samsung Electronics traded at 728,000 won on the Seoul bourse as of 10:15 a.m., up 1.39 percent from Thursday’s close. read more at Yonhap News Agency…

Samsung LCD televisions to be produced in China

By Song Jung-a in Seoul and Kathrin Hille in Beijing (Financial Times) China’s fast-growing market for flat panel television sets is attracting fresh investment from foreign components makers.

Samsung Electronics, the largest flat panel maker, said it would set up a $2.2bn joint venture in China to meet growing demand for liquid crystal display panels in the fastest-growing major economy.

Separately, Foxconn, a unit of Hon Hai, the largest electronics contract manufacturer, agreed to set up a $1bn facility for the production and assembly of LCD and LED components in Chengdu.

The investment plans reflect China’s emergence as a key market for LCD panel makers during the global economic slowdown.

TV makers in the country are ramping up production of flat panel TVs, driven by robust consumer demand.

LCD makers have enjoyed higher-than-expected demand this year thanks to Beijing’s subsidies for electronics purchases in rural areas. read more at FT.com…

Hyundai motor triples profit to 826 million

Jane Han, Staff Reporter (Korea Times): South Korea’s auto giant Hyundai Motor beat expectations, posting a record-high profit in the third quarter driven by a weaker won and strong sales in the U.S. and China.

Net profit for the three months ended Sept. 30 soared to a record 979.1 billion ($826.2 million), up sharply from a profit of 264.7 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing, Thursday.

Sales climbed nearly 34 percent year-on-year to 8.09 trillion won in the same period, while operating profit increased more than five times to 586.8 billion won. read more…