Nokia is back, be careful Lee’s ….

The world’s largest handset maker, Nokia, might come back to South Korea again after its withdrew in 2003. Thanks for SK Telecom which asking the giant Finnish to supply their customers with Nokia’s stuff. Samsung, LG, Motorola, and Pantech; you better watch out boys!

Change in the country’s handset regulations had made this negotiation possible. Back to a couple of years ago, Nokia couldn’t run very well in Korea since there was such a regulation that force Nokia to change their software platform. This is absolutely a difficult issue to deal with. Now, due to something that still has a relation with free trade agreement, this regulation however will become easier to be obeyed.

According to the reputable local daily newspaper, Chosun libo, SK Telecom may offer Nokia products to its customers by the end of this year. Unfortunately, Nokia itself haven’t made any statement yet regarding this issue.

If this issue had gone through, Nokia still will face the tough market since South Korean people is notably known as somewhat nationalist. Nationalist is not bad at all, it’s just could hurting others sometimes.

What happen in car industry, where foreigner cars are much more expensive than the local one might also be happened in mobile phone. Of course this is a bad practice of trading, yet even if government had solved this problem, they probably couldn’t solved the South Korean’s mind-set problem easily; nationalism.

Source: Financial Times, Chosun, Phones Review, and WSJ (Thanks for Gadget.Alltop)

Image courtesy of S60 Blog

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 Print Posted by Wim Permana on April 28th, 2008