Last week we reported that ASUS was going to delay the PadFone, yet again, because they’re not getting enough Snapdragon S4 chips from Qualcomm. We’re sad to report that it looks like Pantech is having the same problem. Now most folks don’t associate Pantech with bleeding edge hardware, and that’s certainly true if you just look at the North American market, but in their home country of South Korea it’s a different story. Pantech’s up there with LG in terms of market share, and their latest flagship, the Vega Racer 2, takes the best parts of the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III and puts them inside a device that kind of sort of looks like the Galaxy Note. According to The Korea Herald, here’s what Park Byeong-yeop, Pantech’s CEO, had to say about the situation his company is currently facing:
“The supply is not enough. If we had been provided with enough chipsets, we could have gained more momentum to lead the LTE phone market now. Due to the lack of chip supply, we had to lower the sales goal for the new phone. For now, we aim to secure a similar level of market share to our hit phone Vega Racer.”
To give you an idea of how small South Korea is, Pantech sold just 1.6 million units of the first generation Vega Racer. That was enough to put them right behind Samsung in terms of 4G LTE enabled smartphone shipments. Here’s also something you probably didn’t know: Qualcomm, the company that’s currently a thorn in Pantech’s ass, owns 10.7% of Pantech. Yes, you read that right.
Knowing that, we have to wonder, who gets priority access to the S4? Qualcomm also owns a small slice of HTC, though we don’t know how small. Are they getting at the front of the line due to the AT&T HTC One X and the international One S? Another important question, when will Qualcomm’s supply issues ease up?
Watch this space.
[Via: Unwired View]