Blackberry Smartphone May Invade Korea Soon

There are plans for SK Telecom, Korea’s largest telecom service provider, to bring the popular Blackberry smartphone to the country. Blackberry is considered to be the world’s most popular smartphone and it hopes also to become one in South Korea. Currently, the Korean smartphone is dominated by Korean firms Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.

The news of SK Telecom’s plan came a senior official at the Korea Communications Commission who said that the said telecom service provider is in talks with various government agencies in Korea with importing Blackberry phones and introduce it into the Korean market. Blackberry smartphones are being manufactured by Research in Motion, a company based in Canada.

The Blackberry is known as a combination of a cell phone and a personal digital assistant. This enables users not only to make calls but also to browse the Internet, check up and send emails as well as organize their appointment schedules. There is an estimated 12 million Blackberry smartphone users all over the world today.

The possible problem with introducing Blackberries into the Korean market has to be the difference in the wireless Internet platform being used. Cellphones all around Korea are required to use the Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability or WIPI whereas Blackberry smartphones make use of Research in Motion’s own proprietary wireless Internet platform.

But Blackberry smartphones may have a way of entering into the Korean market as a PDA. An official at the KCC stated that if Blackberry phones are categorized as PDA’s, then they may be given a way of entry into the market since PDA’s are not required by regulations to use WIPI. The proposed plan would likely spark an interesting competition between the dominant local telecom providers and the possible entry of the new but very popular Blackberry smartphones into the Korean market.

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