Qualcomm eyes Korean investments, while SKT looks abroad

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Qualcomm eyes Korean investments, while SKT looks abroad

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 14 April, 2009

READ MORE: Qualcomm

Qualcomm and the Korean operators have a love-hate relationship - the country's cellcos played a major role, along with Verizon Wireless, in making Qualcomm's CDMA technology a serious rival to GSM; but the authorities have repeatedly tried to reduce dependence on the US firm's technologies, and patent payments. Now harmony is reigning again, with Korea dropping its insistence that all handsets support WIPI (the homegrown alternative to Qualcomm Brew), and the chip giant looking for new investments in the country.

Qualcomm said it is actively looking for South Korean firms in which to invest, under a government investment promotion program. It will review small to medium technology firms and will choose its first partner by October, according to news agency Reuters. CEO Paul Jacobs visited Korea last week to scout potential partners, as it looks to re-establish its market weight in a country that is likely to lead the push to true mobile broadband and 4G.

Meanwhile, Korea's SKT is looking in the reverse direction, seeking investments abroad as its own market saturates. Its new CEO, Man-Won Jung, has KRW3bn ($2.27bn) to spend on such projects, he revealed, as part of a five-year development plan to diversify revenue streams. Jung said the saturation of the domestic mobile market was "much more serious than I thought from the outside".

The carrier will examine both domestic and international opportunities in communications, IT and software and is particularly keen to amass its own arsenal of technology and patents, to rival that of the major handset makers Samsung and LG. Like other operators, SKT believes it must assert greater control of its products, applications and technology base, and extend this worldwide, in order to supplement carrier revenues and improve its bargaining power against its device vendors.

China is expected to be a key target as SKT already has a 3.8% share in China Unicom and major stakes in several content firms such as gaming supplier Magicgrids and China's largest record label, Beijing Taihe & Rye Music.

According to Light Reading, SKT plans to create an end-to-end converged architecture for mobile web services, called '5nGINE.' This will bring together networks like LTE and WiMAX; enabling technologies like mobile money transfer, automatic translation and personalization; and standards for cloud computing and smart grid applications.