Korea Semicon United v. Chaiwan Reunited

Recently LG and Samsung have been enjoying spectacular sales overseas as the Korean Won slumped against other currencies. But Wisely, Korea Inc. has also been massively investing in R&D during the downturn.

The Government wants to go even faster and seize the opportunity to diminish dependence on foreign components key to the IT sector. Yesterday, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy announced that it would contribute to 51% of a KRW 13.3 bn (USD 10.7 M) project in semiconductors which, down the line, may turn KRW 300 bn yearly imports into KRW 300 bn yearly exports*... and whatever the outcome, will result in the creation of new jobs at a most crucial moment.

More than money, the Government seems to be providing a new R&D ecosystem with a set of fair play rules : the most spectacular dimension of the project is the unprecedented alliance of IT rivals Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics on "global digital TV receiver chips", LG developping the core chips and Samsung testing and producing them. Burying the hatchet in this most strategic field could speed up innovation and boost the tandem's overall global sales for many key devices.

The State will also finance 58% (KRW 2.8 bn / 4.8 bn) of a project where SK Telecom shall develop a wireless connectivity SoC for smartphones (WiFi, GPS...) with local chipmakers and system-on-chip expert Xronet.

Korea cannot afford to waste time and energy as China is de facto absorbing Taiwan's industry. They can't compete in volumes in the long term, but need the capacity in order to remain one step ahead in innovation.

This may not sound disruptive, but it's a giant leap since the times when Korea invested in a company called Qualcomm...

Bringing speed and decisiveness, now that's good politics.


* see "Samsung, LG, SK Telecom to develop advanced semiconductors" (20090727 Yonhap)

Carrefour MVNO : Taiwan before China ?

France, Belgium, Italy, Spain... Carrefour Mobile (1 mobile in its baby steps) started in the retailer's neighborhood.

Poland was the first major move eastwards.

Now Taiwan looks like a giant leap.

Of course, Carrefour is a major player on the island with about 60 hypermarkets and 4 M membership cardholders, and times are ripe for a low-end player. But that's a tough and saturated market with 3 existing MVNOs.

Of course, this is a 2G service. But customers can chose between prepaid and postpaid, and can enjoy a loyalty program (rewards : airtime now, store promotions later).

Of course, the phones don't look very smart. But the company created a SPV dedicated to the operation (name of the Special Purpose Vehicule : the usual "Carrefour Telecom").

The host network is the leader, Chunghwa Telecom. Chung Hwa happens to mean "China". Yes, like that neighboring country where Carrefour hypermarkets are not exactly under birth control restrictions.

So this is not yet the giant leap, but one can easily guess where it points to.

Mobile TV between a ROK and a hard pace

Did Europeans learn the lessons from 3G ? Let's see if they can - with or without the contribution of the EU - handle mobile TV any better than UMTS.
While the war of standards is raging, ROK Corporation keep rolling with a solution meant for mass market and 2.5G... well, the mass of Nokia smartphones plus a few Sony Ericssons, a Samsung and Microsoft PDAs.
ROK TV is not actual mobile TV but (potentially TV) programs for mobile : ROK Player's 'Plug and Play' facility "enables people to watch full-length audio-visual programmes on their mobiles without the need for streaming or download".
Last year's launches went so well ROK Entertainment decided to let the masses try ROK TV contents for free (£0.99p per channel per month or all 12 channels for £9.99 per month). That's the official version. The fact is ROK need to act quickly before European MNOs find a common ground on mobile TV.
After the UK, ROK announced launches in the rest of Europe's top 5 (Germany, Italy, France, Spain), but also the USA, Taiwan, Thailand and even China (where they recently launched ROK Lotteries). But not ROK itself - The Republic Of Korea, where the company does have a subsidiary and intends to propose the whole set : ROK Player, ROK TV, ROK Lotteries and ROK Gaming.
ROK also developped a patent for memory-card storage of contents for mobiles, and that could prove to be an even more profitable spot : their Taiwan JV is a partnership with Catalyst Logic, a company part-owned by UTech (the world’s #3 content-contained DVD/CD producer) which is itself part-owned by Riteck Corporation. Riteck makes 40% of the world's blank CDs and happens to be a major manufacturer of memory-cards for the mobile industry...


ROK Entertainment Group : http://www.rokent.com.
ROK Player : http://www.rokplayer.com.
ROK TV : http://www.rok.tv.
ROK Corporation : http://www.rokcorp.com.

ColorZip unzipped

The first buzz about barcode applications for 2-3G started in the late 1990s, and the usage of handsets as code readers started as soon as cameraphones appeared. Remember SonyEricsson's happenings in the US ? Remember SK Telecom's Nate Coupons in supermarkets ?
But then barcodes evolved. They even dropped the bars and became bidimensional. The dress code switched to friday wear and then rainbow wear as ColorZip added new dimensions : color recognition now, caracter recognition later. For CR, all you need is a camera with 100,000 pixel resolution plus a good network.
MNOs seized the opportunity (SKT's Nate Code proposes virtual stamps (Happypost) and a mobile shopping mall), along with publishers (ie TV programs, IDEE magazine). But broadcasters just love the concept and the interaction with their own programs. KBS invested in ColorZip Korea and both Fuji TV ( Fuji Television Network) and TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) put more than a few bucks on ColorZip Japan, which is becoming the entry point for internationalization : Colorzip Singapore happens to be a JV between Colorzip Japan and Colorzip Media.
The franchise is blooming from Korea to Asia (Japan, Singapore, Taiwan...) and Europe (France, Italy...), not to mention USA (patents and partnerships pending). ColorZip could become the de facto standard for m-coding (why not beyond ?). The fun should be catching, and I wouldn't be surprised to see "artistic" evolutions... Definitely sexier than treacherous RFID and carceral barcodes.

Voice Discounted, data embedded, TV Finnished

18 eurocents per mn, Alles Klar. klarmobil.de is mobilcom's latest vehicle to claim more customers and lower even more their revenues. Because subscriptions are up (4.55M end of June) but overall turnover down (-8% vs Q2 2004). So the operator communicates on a growing EBITDA per customer... New owners Texas Pacific Group obviously wanted to add sexier assets to their kolossales spectrum... up for sale but when and to whom ?

At last, 3G starts being embedded in laptops : Dell are working with Cingular on UMTS and should add HSDPA Q1 2006, and in the cdma2000 family, with Verizon on EV-DO (along with HP & IBM-Lenovo). W-CDMA and EV-DO proved their reliability and MNOs shouldn't miss the window of opportunity before the WiMAX - WiBro wave.

Nokia waited for the 2bn mobile sub mark to announce handset #1,000,000,000, so that stupid analysts can praise their 50% market share. Less stupid : the choice of Taiwan for a new R&D center devoted to 3G. The Mobile Services Development Center (MSDC) is a JV with the Institute for Information Industry and the perfect bridge with mainland China. This side of the Thames, Nok-Nok are about to start their Oxford DVB-H trial with Ariqva (see Row vs wideband), but 02 customers won't pay for the TV service... the aim of the game remains to duplicate an easy experiment everywhere across Europe and lobby regulators, not to validate the potential of a commercial service. And working with Microsoft definitely changed the way Nokia annouce future products : I cultivate the buzz far in advance (i.e. 4Gb Nokia N91 will combine W-CDMA and WiFi and laminate iPods) and I postpone the launch because of Redmond's embedded bug-and-glitches function.

Zero noodle. Korea goes South.

Wireless goes TV : the latest Samsung TV phone for TU Media has a stand so that the user can watch it without holding it. Next disruption ? I suggest the integration of the "mobile TV" in a 1950s piece of furniture...
TV goes wireless : China's Haier claims the world's first UWB HDTV. Remember the first 802.11b TV ? I don't give a damn which techno makes it provided "zero noodle" happens before "zero paper".
Korea goes South :

• It may take BenQ some time to catch up with LG and Samsung in the mobile handset business, but Taiwan is already ahead of Korea as far as LCD screens are concerned.
• One year after turning down Qualcomm's EV-DV chip, LG Telecom will fulfill his 3G duties in Korea with Qualcomm's EV-DO revision A erzatz (EV-DO rA ble ?). Sign of the times : LG just applied for a wireless license in China and among the 8 players to apply, only Amoi prefered CDMA to GSM.

Japan goes West : Mobile payment 1 : 0 Mobile philantropy (injury time).

• NTT DoCoMo are pushing as hard as ever in the mobile payment arena. One day after clinching a deal with East Japan Railway on common infrastructures for Suica and Osaifu Keitei, they announced a JV with ULTRA d.d.d., the Slovenian owner of Telargo (a mobile assets management specialist of which DCM will take 49%) and the much more interesting

M-PAY...

While DoCoMo are pushing, Arun Sarin is considering an end to the Vodafone Ka Ka in Japan.

West meets East : China Netcom and Telefonica decided to work together on their core businesses and, more spectacularily, to share managerial best practices and seats at each other's Boards and Committees. The Carlos Goshn's effect ? Expect some wireless byproducts (Goshn in a clamshell ?).