There are 3 sevices providers now in Korea. SK Telecom, KTF and LGT.
SK Telecom, an SK company, was once a government-owned first market player who has major market share to 50%.
KTF, a Korea Telecom company, holds about 30% of market, while LGT, an LG company, has less than 20%.
Recently Ministry of Information and Communication of Korean government alleviated the regulation on the first three number. Now subscribers can select numbers regardless which carrier they take. Before this action, 011 was assigned to SKT, 016 to KTF, and 019 to LGT. A few more years ago, businessmen tended to have 011 mostly as they would try to be seen rich. LGT took advantages of this change. They are trying to hook the customers with better phones and lower monthly fee.
There are many phone manufacteurers now.
Samsung is a leading one, LG Electronics and Pantec& Curitel(Former Hyundai) follow. KTFT, a KTF company increases its share working with KTF.(KTF Ever) SK also has a vendor with the brand "Sky". Motorola and Nokia are struggling. VK can be a dark horse.
Phone vendors are rather dependent on carriers. In most cases, carrier can guarantee the minimum sales with their strong sales agent stores all over the country.
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