TORONTO-Pantech Group continued its march to establish a global brand identity by launching its first Pantech-branded handset-the PN-3200 for young consumers-in Canada. The handset is available through Telus Mobility, Canada’s second-largest CDMA operator, for $100 with a two-year contract.
As an original design manufacturer, Pantech has supplied handsets to Telus Mobility since the late 1990s. However, those handsets did not carry Pantech’s brand.
Telus Mobility counts about 4.6 million wireless subscribers, or about 27 percent of the overall Canadian market of 17 million wireless subscribers. The country’s population is 33 million. In contrast, the U.S. population is nearly 300 million and mobile penetration is estimated at 70 percent.
The PN-3200 is a clamshell-style phone with a VGA camera and music player, and will run on Telus Mobility’s nationwide CDMA network.
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 scored its first major branding coup in the United States when it supplied the first handset for the Walt Disney Co.’s mobile virtual network operator effort, and recently has drawn attention with the Pantech-branded C300 model for Cingular Wireless L.L.C.
Pantech is the second-largest mobile phone company in South Korea and the seventh-largest in the world, according to the company.
