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# The Electronic Times (December 6, 2004)
# By Park Seung-jung & Kim Won-suk



In a bid to maintain leadership in the world next-generation mobile phone market, big 3 mobile handset makers in Korea, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech affiliates, plan to invest more than 3 trillion won (approximately 2.88 billion dollars) combined in development of cutting-edge communication technologies next year.

These companies will concentrate on the development of advanced technologies, including 3rd-generation wireless handsets, digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) phones, software applications and user interfaces, industry sources said.

With a goal to gain 24 trillion won in sales next year, Samsung Electronics?information and communication division plans to inject 1.6 trillion won to 1.7 trillion won into R&D in communication sector, accounting for 7 to 8% of its revenue next year. The company will also increase the number of researchers from 6,000 now to 7,000 next year.

Information and communication business division of LG Electronics decided to inject 1 trillion won into R&D next year, nearly twice as much investment as this year. It will particularly beef up capabilities at its R&D centers in China, India and the United States, while increasing the number of researchers from 2,500 this year to 5,000 by 2006.

"We will put focus on development of a variety of leading-edge 3G phones such as DMB handsets, smart phones, and portable Internet gears," said Ahn Seung-gwon, Vice CEO of LG Electronics.

Pantech affiliate mobile phone makers will pour 450 billion won in development of new technologies next year, representing more than 10% of its target sales for the year. It will also raise R&D manpower from 1,650 now to 2,300 next year. Pantech spent 320 billion won last year for development of core components of mobile phones such as 1.3 mega pixel complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) lens, 3.1 mega pixel camera module, and MPEG4 chip.

"The company funneled 620 billion won into R&D projects over the thee years. It will put concerted efforts into development of patent and source technologies in the future," said a manager at Pantech.

"In order to keep leading position in competition in the next-generation mobile phone market, firms are required to make more investments for developing new multimedia application technologies such as 'H.264' that can dramatically raise speed of transmitting mobile images in DMB handsets, and 'high speed downlink packet access (PSDPA)' for WCDMA phones," said an industry expert. "Mobile phone makers are anticipated to raise R&D investments to 10 to 15% of their revenue, beginning next year."