Samsung to sell mobile phones for i-mode service in Europe
( 2003-01-12 11:35 ) (7 )

South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. will begin supplying mobile phone handsets designed to receive i-mode Internet services operated by NTT DoCoMo Inc. in Europe, a daily said Sunday.

The South Korean electronics manufacturer will initially ship 100,000 to 200,000 units this year, intending to later boost the amount after monitoring sales trends, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

The company is due to supply a clam-shell model equipped with a small digital camera to Bouygues Telecom, France's third-largest mobile phone service provider, the business daily said.

Samsung also intends supplying its i-mode handsets to other mobile phone operators in Europe, the newspaper said.

Since its debut in Japan in February 1999, the i-mode service, which enables users to e-mail, surf the web and watch video images, has attracted some 36 million users in Japan.

In March last year DoCoMo launched the i-mode service in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium through KPN Mobile NV, Holland's largest cell phone service operator, in which the Japanese company owns a 15 percent stake.

Bouygues Telecom also began the service in November. Spain's Telefonica Mobiles Espana, the largest player in the country, is due to follow suit by June this year.

But only two types of handsets + made by NEC Corp. and Toshiba Corp. + have so far been available in Europe for the service, Nihon Keizai said, adding that this has limited the number of subscribers to about 150,000.

Samsung, which sold some 30 million handsets in January-September last year, controls 10 percent of the global market.

It has overtaken Germany's Siemens AG to rank third after Finland's Nokia Corp., which has a 35 percent market share, and Motorola Inc. of the United States, with a 15 percent share.