[Android vs. iPhone] Will Android handset beat out the iPhone?

February 09, 2010

 

 

Korea’s first Android-based smartphone, the Motoroi, will hit the market Wednesday, sparking heated guesswork among industry observers about whether it will beat Apple’s iPhone, the hugely popular smartphone model that sold over 300,000 units on the local market last year.

SK Telecom said yesterday that some 20,000 people have pre-ordered the Motoroi, manufactured by Motorola and serviced by SK Telecom, through advance reservations that took place for 10 days from Jan. 26.

According to a survey conducted on some 700 people by an online forum for smartphone users in Korea at www.mymits.net, 57 percent of respondents picked Android-based phones while the rest chose the iPhone as the winner in the smartphone competition this year.

“We believe the introduction of the Motoroi will be a turning point in Korea’s smartphone market. We were able to see what high expectations people have for the Android OS,” said Kim Seon-jung, a sales director at SK Telecom.

In fact, SK Telecom says, more than half of those who pre-ordered the Motoroi cited the expectations for Google’s Android operating system as the reason for purchasing the Motoroi.

With Google being a search giant, one of the biggest charms of the Android OS is its search capabilities. For instance, if you view a photo of Brad Pitt on the Android-based phone, the device will offer you related search results like the actor’s entry in Wikipedia, among others.

Also, you don’t have to hook your Android-based phone up to a computer to download software content like you do with iPhones, based on Apple’s iPhone OS, which need to be connected to computers to get access to certain online digital media stores like iTunes.Another big plus of Android-based phones is their openness about their OS sources. This means users can add any functions developed by any content developer to Android - something that has appealed to Korea’s mobile carriers.

United States-based information technology research firm Gartner predicted that the market share of smartphones will increase to 20 percent by 2012, reaching 525 million units in 2012 from 179 million in 2009.

SK Telecom, Korea’s largest mobile carrier, plans to introduce 15 new smartphones to the local market this year, 12 to 13 of which will be Android-based models. KT, the nation’s No. 2 mobile carrier, also plans to introduce 10 to 15 new smartphones, at least half of which will use Android.

Meanwhile, as part of further marketing efforts for iPhones, KT said yesterday it will give discounts of up to 77 percent to smartphone users when they access the Internet overseas.


By Kim Hyung-eun, Park Hye-min [hkim@joongang.co.kr]