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=DJ INTERVIEW: Pantech Challenges Sony Ericsson, BenQ, LG
By Joon Knapen Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
HANOVER, Germany (Dow Jones)--Pantech Group aims to become the world's No.5 cellphone maker in 2008, challenging established players like LG Electronics Inc. (066570.SE) and Sony Ericsson, Sung Kyu Lee, the head of the Korean company's handset businesses said late Thursday.
Pantech, the world's seventh-largest mobile-phone maker by units, has two handset units: Pantech & Curitel Communications Inc. (063350.SE) and Pantech Co. Ltd. (025930.SE). Lee is chief executive of Pantech & Curitel and oversees the handset business of Pantech Co.
"We want to become the global No.5 in two years time," Lee said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires at the CeBIT technology trade fair. That "means we need to sell 50 million handsets in 2008," he added.
Pantech, a relative latecomer to the handset-market, is one of the faster-growing cellphone manufacturers in Asia. It has overtaken domestic rival LG in Korea, becoming the No.2 behind Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (005930.SE), though globally it still lags LG.
Lee said that Pantech, which targets the high-end of the market, expects to sell 27 million handsets in 2006, up 59% from the 17 million sold in 2005. Growth will come in all regions, with sales in the U.S. expected to increase to 11 million from 7 million, he said.
Pantech, known for producing the world's first camera phone that uses fingerprint recognition technology rather than a PIN code for access, started its European operations in July 2005. It has offices in Milan, Paris, London, Duesseldorf and Eschborn, which is close to Frankfurt.
In 2006, the company's handset sales in Europe are expected to reach 1 million, said Lee, predicting "rapid growth" for 2007.
So far, the company's European presence is limited - only some small wireless operators in France offer Pantech phones. But Lee said that he is in talks with the large operators, including Deutsche Telekom AG's (DT) T-Mobile International AG (TMO.YY), France Telecom SA's (FTE) Orange and Vodafone Group PLC (VOD).
Pantech, which says it launches 42 new phones every year, will offer its first smart-phone later this year. "We will start shipments of our first smart-phone to North America in September," said Lee, adding that the smart-phone runs on Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows platform.
Pantech is battling for business in a fiercely competitive market that's currently dominated by the likes of Nokia Corp. (NOK), Motorola Inc. (MOT) and Samsung.
LG, Sony Ericsson - a joint venture between Telefon AB LM Ericsson (ERICY) and Sony Corp. (SNE) - and BenQ Corp.'s (2352.TW) BenQ-Siemens make up the lower rankings.
BenQ-Siemens was formed after German engineering conglomerate Siemens AG (SI) offloaded its unprofitable handset unit to Taiwan's BenQ in late 2005.
Lee said that Pantech looked at taking on Siemens' handset business, but he told the Pantech board "it was just too risky."

Company Web site: http://www.pantech.com;
http://www.curitel.com/english

-By Joon Knapen, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires
03-10-06 1133ET
Copyright (c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.