hankyoreh

Shin Jong-won, Executive Director, Seoul YMCA

Ever since Korea became the first country to employ the regular use of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology in mobile phones in 1996, Korean phones have been a source of pride in terms of growth in both phone styles and services. Korean phones are high-tech, multi-function devices that fetch a high price on the global market; they are, in short, objects of desire.

The Korean market itself is not very expansive, but it has been the best proving ground for the world’s mobile phones. The past 10 years of growth in Korea has had as its basis the pool of consumers who are ready to buy phones equipped with the latest functions, no matter how expensive. Young Koreans are also unforgiving of the slightest technical issues - even down to an incident where customers were upset upon finding that the days of the week for a period in 2030 on one model’s calendar were incorrect. This has also contributed to the qualitative growth that Korean phones have enjoyed.

As of May, Korea had 39.13 million mobile phone users; soon that number will be 40 million. Now, phones with cameras, MP3 functions, and Digital Multimedia Broadcast (DMB) - which gives you "television in the palm of your hand" - are commonplace. Soon it will be considered a basic feature to have the ability to send and receive video clips.

Mr. Kim is a man in his forties who is in business for himself. A few years ago he decided his phone was way too old, so he entered a phone store to buy a new one. He thought that with the additional subsidy given by network providers, he would be able to purchase one without it hurting his wallet too much. However, he found that your average DMB phone runs between 400,000 and 500,000 (US $420-525). He asked for the cheapest one available, but that was going to cost him 200,000, even after he qualified for the network subsidy. He did not need a camera, an MP3, or DMB technology. He just wanted a quality phone that worked well, but there was none to be had.

Mr. Park is in his thirties and works for a conglomerate. He wants to buy something simple for his elderly father, something with big keys and a big screen. He has yet to succeed.

Ms. Choe is a graduate student in her thirties. Thinking it should be easy enough to change phones, she dug around in phone stores and scoured the internet. Sure enough, she found one for less than 100,000. But upon closer examination, she found that the phone was really nothing worth choosing: she would had to wait to use the subsidy, she could not use her old phone number, and the demands stipulated in the fee schedule were sketchy.

Lately there have been frequent news reports about the poor sales performance of Korean phones. Nokia and Motorola are selling inexpensive models in newly emerging markets like India and South America, while Korean phones are occupying an ever smaller share of the global market. One of the reasons cited is the strategy of Korean phone makers, which have insisted on producing only high-priced phones.

On the global market, phones under $US100 are considered low-priced. There is already intense international competition for phones under US$50 and even phones under US$30. In Korea, the top proving ground for the global phone market, there is none under US$100. Phones that are all about reception, that are cheap, and do not have the latest functions simply do not exist. This is all because Korea’s mobile phone producers have been competing to see who can make the slimmest phone with the most features packed inside, then trying to sell them to consumers willing to buy a product that they can carry in their hand but that is more expensive than a large refrigerator.

It is abnormal to have a mobile phone market where you cannot find a model that does not come with a camera and is less than 300,000. It is just fine to have a phone costing millions of Won and with all of the latest features. But this has to be balanced with models costing 100,000 or 50,000 on the same display stands. It is a lack of courtesy to consumers, the very people who have contributed to the globally unprecedented growth in the telecommunications industry, for Korea’s producers to defend themselves with the excuse that low-cost phones do not sell enough for their manufacture to make sense. The producers need to give consumers the right to choose 100,000 phones.