SEOUL-South Korea’s Pantech & Curitel Communications Inc. will provide its portfolio of CDMA-based handsets to UTStarcom Inc. for sale in North America under a three-year agreement, the company announced.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Pantech already is a leading supplier of CDMA handsets to Nokia Corp. in the United States in the role of original design manufacturer, after the Finnish mobile handset vendor earlier this year scotched plans to participate in a CDMA joint venture with Sanyo Corp. Nokia has said, however, that it will pursue a “multiple ODM strategy” in addressing the CDMA market in the U.S., so the UTStarcom deal will provide Pantech with another steady customer for its CDMA phones.