LAS VEGAS-Hanging out with the Walt Disney Co. can do wonders for your reputation, especially if you’ve been flying under the radar for years, like Pantech Wireless Inc.
The South Korean handset vendor’s American subsidiary announced its new handsets for the second quarter at CTIA yesterday. But nothing in the range of products is likely to outshine the vendor’s model DM-P100, the entry-level priced handset ($60 retail) selected by Disney as its first handset for its Disney Mobile MVNO, announced at CTIA’s opening day keynote session.
The Disney deal’s announcement featured a giant mockup of Pantech’s clamshell model DM-P100 handset, which was distinguished by Pantech’s name in block capital letters, just below the screen. “Disney Mobile” appears above the screen with top billing, of course.
The handset is designed and priced for a market characterized primarily by families, so presumably consumers will buy them in twos, threes and more. The phone’s function features were designed to appeal equally to children and adults, in line with Disney’s plan to treat each member of the family as equals-except, naturally, that the adults will be enabled to control the content and usage of the kids’ handsets.
Disney plans to begin selling the phone in June; the service will run on Sprint Nextel Corp.’s CDMA2000 1x network.
In the big picture, the deal with Disney finally puts Pantech on the map. It is the culmination of a fairly recent effort to establish brand recognition worldwide, after years of anonymity as an original design manufacturer and original equipment manufacturer.
In 2003, Pantech began a strategic effort to brand its handsets for a mix of sophisticated and emerging markets in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Russia . Today it pursues this effort in Brazil, China and the United States , in tandem with production facilities and sales support in each market.
Pantech’s efforts and success with Disney have, perhaps inadvertently, underscored one of the likeliest ways that second-tier handset makers will survive, even thrive, as the five largest handset vendors squeeze global market share for the second tier. The MVNO space is viewed by analysts as an opportunity for small handset vendors to create customized devices for specialized needs, whether with co-branding-as in Pantech’s case with Disney-or as anonymous partners.
