"Foreign brand" South Korea Samsung alone big worry

To conquer the fortress-like strong Korean mobile phone market, in addition to the Apple has a foothold, the market has been unable to find a second overseas manufacturers.

But even so, Apple, the top global market capitalisation, has only taken the fourth place in South Korea, where three of the country's smart-phones are now dominated by local companies, Samsung, LG and Pan-Thai.

Over the past few years, HTC, Sony, Motorola, BlackBerry, Nokia ... A steady stream of mobile phone manufacturers trying to compete with South Korean brands Samsung and LG, but their insistence has not earned much in return, and the list of "exit South Korea" has been stretched year by year.

The ebb and flow of Korea

The first one to be overwhelmed is HTC. Last July, HTC decided to close its South Korean subsidiary, and HTC's South Korean subsidiary, the head of the company, announced its departure. Its handset market share has shrunk to 1%, leading to HTC's "tough decision".

Subsequently, Motorola, which had launched its first mobile phone in history, also announced that it would withdraw from the South Korean market in February 2013. South Korea was one of the few countries where Motorola Mobility (39.98, 0.00, 0%) had a research and development center and Design Center. But after it launched its smartphone "ATRIX" and "RAZR" to the Korean market in 2011, it did not launch any new smartphone products, with about 500 employees at Motorola South Korea, which retained only about 10% of its developers.

Nokia, which is still in the process of downsizing, also last September issued plans to close the TMC production sector in South Korea and mass layoffs. Established in the 80 's, Nokia TMC has been an important overseas production base for Nokia, with output reaching 4.6 trillion won, but has slipped to 2.8 trillion won in recent years.

followed by the BlackBerry. In February this year, BlackBerry executives are reassessing the future of the South Korean market as products are "in a slump" in the Korean market. At present the company in South Korea only SK telecom operator partner.

More and more mobile phone manufacturers farewell to the Korean market behind, one of the important reasons is the strong local competition, Samsung and LG smartphone products in the Local has a high appeal, especially the Android Market, Samsung, LG, Pan-Thai three occupy more than 90% of the market share, overseas manufacturers have little room to get in.

What makes rivals more fearful is Samsung's alliances and capital operations in the mobile phone market. In March this year, Samsung Electronics injected 53 billion trillion won into Pan-Thai group as the third largest shareholder. At present, Korea's Android smartphone market is Samsung, LG and Pan-Thai pillars, Samsung shares pan-Thai, not only to maintain the status of pillars, but also to contain LG, and to prevent the monopoly, almost one swoop three.

In such a competitive environment, South Korea has been a challenging market for foreign manufacturers such as HTC, and it is hard to support a number of international handset makers, says Nicole Peng, a market research firm Canalys analyst. Or it would be wise to withdraw from the Korean market.

A big worry

The strong support of the Korean government and the devaluation of the yen have been considered to be the important factors for the rise of Samsung and the surpassing of Japanese electronic enterprises. But more crucially still is the pattern dividend of its unprecedented scale of efficient vertical consolidation: A number of key 0 components, from LCD panels to CPU chips to storage chips, are self-sufficient. In the field of vertical integration, few mobile phone manufacturers like it has any cost advantages, even in the mobile phone field of rival Apple, also have to buy chips from Samsung and other raw materials.

While complaining about Samsung as a strong position as a local brand, the choice to give up the Korean market has a "difficult to read". For example, HTC, which has been underperforming in the first half of last year, has abandoned the Brazilian market in addition to patent lawsuits from Apple and the market share of Samsung, and has been slow to complete a transition from the smartphone boom, facing the fate of grabs and shutting down the Japanese market , and Nokia, which has struggled to save itself, has already started cutting jobs around the world.

Samsung, by contrast, has taken over 14 years of global handset boss Nokia down from the first quarter of 2012, taking over the throne of global handset sales. Samsung's profits have hit a new high for the sixth consecutive quarter, according to earnings, with Samsung achieving a net profit of 7.77 trillion won (about $6.9 billion) in the second quarter, up 50% per cent year-on-year. The profits of other companies are eclipsed by the figures, and only Apple can compete.

Samsung has always been the best follower, said Zhang, the chief executive of the media consultancy, and it never "miserly" to learn and imitate, "replicate and kill", and its aggressive sports marketing has made Samsung's brand increasingly international.

But for Samsung today, the huge success of the handset business has helped push Samsung into the top technology company, while also burying the pitfalls of too much profit margins and a serious imbalance in business development.

The drawbacks of Monopoly have also appeared in the market. Earlier, Samsung, LG and other South Korean operators in collusion with mobile phone prices to deceive customers, the South Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC) issued a large number of fines, the total fine amount of 45.3 billion won (40.1 million U.S. dollars).

This may also reflect the South Korean mobile phone market still needs more competitors to "break the monopoly", but who can become the market-stirring catfish, remains an unknown.