Motorola on Monday unveiled the first smartphone model based on Google’s Android operating system in South Korea, as the mobile giant seeks to expand its presence in the global smartphone market.

Motorola, the biggest U.S. mobile handset maker, will release Motoroi in the South Korean market next month.

The domestic market for smartphones has grown rapidly in recent months, fueled by the introduction of Apple Inc.’s iPhone in December, which dominates local sales alongside another model by Samsung Electronics that is based on the Windows Mobile system.

“It will open a new era of smartphones in Korea,” Rick Wolochatiuk, president of Motorola Korea, told a press conference.

Motoroi will be carried by SK Telecom, Motorola’s exclusive local partner and the country’s largest mobile carrier by subscribers.

Apple’s iPhone, brought by KT, the No. 2 mobile carrier and Apple’s sole contractor, topped the 240,000 sales mark as of Jan. 1, KT said. SK Telecom sold more than 300,000 units of Samsung’s smartphone based on Microsoft Corp.’s software and plans to release 12 to 13 Android-based devices this year.

“Android ecosystem is the fastest growing in terms of new applications,” said Wolochatiuk on the company’s choice of Google’s system.

Motoroi, which does not have a built-in qwert keypad unlike its sister model Droid in the U.S., will also be released in China “shortly,” said John Gherghetta, corporate vice president of Motorola’s Mobile Devices Business. Gherghetta was on a visit to Seoul to promote the new model.

The vice chief of Motorola’s mobile business said the company plans to release more than 30 smartphones this year based on Android, Windows Mobile and other operating systems as it seeks to regain its stature in the mobile phone market and become a competitive smartphone company.

“Every phone that Motorola is designing and making is a smartphone,” Gherghetta told Yonhap News Agency on the sidelines of the press meeting for the unveiling of the Motoroi.

“We will also then have a second part of the strategy, which then comes into the lower-tier smartphones and feature phone categories,” he added.

Motorola, which used to be the third-largest global handset maker before South Korea’s LG Electronics claimed the No. 3 spot in 2008, is prepared to make a rebound from 2009 to gain a jumpstart in the rapidly growing smartphone market, the vice president said.

“The old Motorola had many tens of platforms and user interfaces, so… making phones fast was very difficult,” Gherghetta said. “But now we can release multiple phones very quickly.”

The company had to reorganize its software, user interface and architecture during the last year and rebuild its platform as it struggled in an increasingly crowded phone market.

“When motorola was trying to do the turnaround last year, we did not release too many phones until the end of the year,” he said. “And then all of a sudden, we released phones in Korea, several in China, in Western Europe and the U.S. and we can do this very quickly.”

Gherghetta added Motorola expects to increase its investment in research and development this year, without revealing further details.

YonhapNewsAgency

TelecomsKorea.com

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