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ST DuPont joins the luxury phone race with Pantech's "Sky"

Sep 27, 2009 15:30

Korea's other mobile giant Pantech has announced a new luxury mobile phone with French brand ST DuPont. The product name is Sky DuPont IM-510LE, and it will be available through number one mobile carrier SK Telecom in Korea.

Pantech is known as the third-biggest mobile phone manufacturer in Korea, behind Samsung and LG. It used to be the second-largest in terms of market share in Korea until LG took over with its Chocolate phone which proved to be an international big hit. After LG's success in the luxury phone market with Prada, Samsung launched the Armani phone to compete in this new market segment.

Only lately did Pantech join this premium phone race, but it seems to be limiting its target market and customers, which is unlike what other manufacturers are doing.

The DuPont phone will be available as a 2G (CDMA) handset and only for SK Telecom network users. This means the target customers will be very limited, indeed. Pantech has a local brand name called "Sky" and this is recognized as a premium mobile brand in Korea. It will be looking to the DuPont phone to upgrade its brand image, expecting to sell around 30,000 sets of this handset to maintain a premium image.



Here are the details of ST DuPont's mobile phone created by Pantech. The main concept comes from ST DuPont's lighter design. Pantech has integrated this as a push-up button with the same cling sound which can heard when the lighter cap opens. Pantech has coated the DuPont phone's rim with 18K gold. The phone has a 3-inch touchscreen LCD, mobile TV (T-DMB), 3-megapixel camera, GPS, Bluetooth, mobile dictionary and many other applications.

The retail price isn't fixed yet, but Pantech says this phone will be the most expensive model in its entire mobile phone lineup. We assume the price to be around US$800 to US$900.



Personally, I like the design and the idea of the push-up button which can act as a hold button, as well as the hidden camera at the back. But it's only for a 2G network which I'm unable to use since I'm a subscriber of a 3G network.

Hopefully, Pantech succeeds in this premium phone segment and introduces another model with 3G network support. Who knows, the company may release this model into the international market since it is already doing well in the US, Japan and South American markets. Let's see how this phone performs in Korea.


Trailer movie of Pantech ST DuPont Phone. (Source: Acrofan)

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