There are at least two reasons to believe that Korea could
outflank even the deep-pocketed DoCoMo in setting standards
for advanced mobile phones in the West.
1. the need to recovering proportionally greater overseas
mobile telecom investments made so far;
and
2. The Finland Effect.
1. Investment Recovery
Korea was, at one point, a huge buyer of regional wireless
spectrum in the U.S. This was some time ago, and it might
have sold those assets off, but I suspect Korean companies
still have makor ownership in this arena, and that these assets are
financially underperforming at the moment.
I have no numbers here, though; and the situation might have
radically changed anyway.
2. The Finland Effect
The Finland Effect is something I speculated on in an earlier
posting on keitai-l:
<mika fix that search engine!>
where I suggest that much of Nokia's success is motivated
from do-or-die. The Finns know from unemployment,
which briefly touched 15% in the early 90s (when the
breakup of the USSR inconveniently divested them of
their shadow-nomenklatura role within that economy).
And Finland is a small country that has to make its export
industries work, come what may. All Scandinavian
countries faced economic crises at the time, but Finland's
was probably the most dire. Nokia has helped Finland
significantly.
If there's something to this reasoning, what might there
be to a Korea-Finland analogy? Well, Korea is a
small East Asia country surrounded by superpowers.
Finns could certainly relate to that.
Korea pulled out of the tailspin of 1997 not just by
bowing to the IMF, but also by riding the IT Bubble
tailwind as much as the Taiwanese, at least where
they could.
But they can't expect a second wind from either
quarter now. Welcome to Finland 1994.
Sure, they're bigger and more diversified than the
Finns -- and bad times might mean Americans giving
up on the Lexus impulse-buy and settling for the
Hyundai. But with the world market for many of
their tech products cooling so suddenly, and with
potentially lucrative spectrum in the U.S. being
underutilized, the Koreans might do the full-court
press into advanced mobile telephones, outflanking
the Japanese more out of sheer need than sheer
greed. And I'll bet on sheer need any day.
One possible strike against them: their chaebol-
focused industrial organization is so closely patterned
after the Japanese, it's hard to see how they could
beat the Japanese at their own game, except by
forcing their currency to collapse dramatically
against the yen. That could cause serious
craziness. Still, a cheap _won_ plus GSM, plus
doing a Nokia (concentrating marketing effort
on phones that are just advanced enough to
be competitive, not the high end) might give them
a fighting chance.
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
----- Original Message -----
From: <drew.freyman@nokia.com>
To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2001 7:13 PM
Subject: (keitai-l) Re: CNN: Korea wants to show the world
> Does association with Qualcomm and Brew equal technological equivalency to
> Japanese manufacturers? I don't understand your comment.
>
> The Japanese carriers took the lead in specifying terminals with
polyphonic
> ringers, color displays, Java compatibility, etc. The Japanese
> manufacturers were the first to have these technologies commercially
> available. The Korean carriers followed slightly behind (about six
months)
> and this is probably the reason for their being slightly behind.
>
> However, I do not mean to imply I supported the original contributors
> comments that Korea as somehow crazy to think they are leading in mobile
> technologies. Conversely, the Japanese lead is probably not substantial,
> and the Koreans have advantages of lower cost, adherence to global
standards
> (in some cases), and an agressiveness (my personal opinion). The Koreans
> may lead...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext Jay [mailto:wirelessjava@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 8:58 PM
> To: keitai-l@appelsiini.net
> Subject: (keitai-l) Re: CNN: Korea wants to show the world
>
>
>
> I have friends at Qualcomm that have helped out Korea Freetel set up their
> infrastruture. So why would be behind ? BREW is going to be pretty
> strong especially for the entertainment side of wireless
>
> ---jay
>
> drew.freyman@nokia.com wrote: The Korean mnfs. are about 6 months behind
> the Japan in size, battery life,
> functionality. They have Java sets, color displays, polyphonic ring tones,
> etc. I cannot speak to their RF technology, but I did not notice any
> significant difference between reception for Korean phones and Japanese
> phones.
>
>
> [ excessive quoting removed ]
>
>
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Received on Tue Sep 11 15:29:01 2001