Hang around these pages long enough and you're bound to come across Pantech, the South Korean purveyor of everything from giant 1080p handsets down to... giant 720p handsets. Samsung has noticed this rising star too and, so says Yonhap News, has now made a $50 million investment in the smaller company in return for a 10 percent stake. Implicit in that is that the Korean government has allowed Samsung's ever-expanding influence to infiltrate a potential rival, since Pantech is now the No. 3 phone maker in that country and only Qualcomm and a state-run bank possess larger stakes than Samsung's. As a result, the acquisition could have an anti-competitive aura to it -- but then, Pantech has actually been struggling of late, not least with large debts, and it has relied on big backers to bail it out.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Via: The Next Web

Source: Yonhap News

Smitten with Samsung's Galaxy S 4? Well, if you're looking to pick on up right now, you'd best book a red-eye flight to South Korea, where it'll go on sale in the next 24 hours. The 5-inch 1080p flagship will arrive on all three of the country's main carriers, with an unspecified global roll-out following on Friday. Meanwhile, the company has also commented on "supply chain problems" affecting its roll-out of the S4. In a statement to Sky News, Samsung said that initial supplies of the handset may be limited "due to overwhelming global demand" and its limited stock of memory components. The pinch is already being felt in the US, as both Sprint and T-Mobile reassess their launch dates in-store.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

Comments

Source: Samsung Tomorrow, Sky News