The South Korean market is a tough wireless-nut to crack. With market leaders like Samsung and LG laying claim to most of the wireless market on the Asian peninsula, outsider mobile phone manufacturers have found that penetrating the South Korean mobile market isn’t easy. But, that hasn’t discouraged Sony Ericsson from pursuing this elusive market.
Sony Ericsson has announced that it will enter the South Korean mobile market with highly acclaimed Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 leading the charge. While Sony Ericsson’s Korean marketing head Han Younhee admits that the current “economic climate isn’t favorable” for exploring new markets, Sony Ericsson is eying the expanding South Korean smartphone market as a longer-term investment. SK Telecom has been tapped as the Japanese-Swedish phone maker’s partner carrier, and will offer the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 on the SK Telecom network.
The SK Telecom Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 will come pre-loaded with a full-length Spiderman 3 movie, and will include custom panels that will integrate with popular South Korean services like the Daum web portal and SK Telecom’s mail and Web services – not to mention the 3-inch WVGA resistive touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel camera, QWERTY keyboard, GPS, WiFi, 3G data and the Panel UI. Still, it remains to be seen if the customized XPERIA X1 will give Sony Ericsson enough of a foothold to expand into South Korea.
[Via: MocoNews]