Korea Plans $2.8B 3G Investment

In a bid to maintain leadership in the world next-generation mobile phone market, the big 3 mobile handset makers in Korea, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech affiliates, plan to invest more than 3 trillion won (approx. 2.88 billion dollars) combined in development of cutting-edge communication technologies next year. These companies will concentrate on the advanced development of 3G handsets, digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) phones, software applications and user interfaces, industry sources said.

“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.” Via: IT Korea.