Cingular opens door to Pantech phones

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Cingular opens door to Pantech phones
By Phil Carson
May 31, 2006
ATLANTA—Cingular Wireless L.L.C. will offer the Pantech Group’s “Slim Series” of phones, beginning with the tiny C300 for its prepaid GoPhone customers, giving the South Korean handset maker another prominent place in the coveted U.S. handset market. The Pantech C300 is a small flip phone—the vendor and Cingular are touting it as “the world’s smallest camera flip phone”—that measures less than three inches long, less than two inches wide and three-quarters of an inch thick. It sports a color screen, a VGA camera with zoom and flash, MP3 ringtones and an SMS/MMS/IM client and e-mail messaging. It’s expected to cost $120 at Cingular’s stores and online.
Cingular’s GoPhone prepaid service offers two service plans, “Pick Your Plan” and “Pay As You Go.” “Pick Your Plan” offers monthly payments without a long-term contract, and “Pay As You Go” is a more traditional prepaid offering.
“The launch of the C300 in the U.S. represents a huge step forward in the development of Pantech as a global brand,” said Sung Kyu Lee, Pantech’s president and chief executive officer.
Pantech, South Korea’s second largest handset vendor and seventh largest in the world, has been focusing on extending its brand beyond its domestic market. Each of the company’s Pantech-branded handsets in the U.S. market is considered a moment in the sun in terms of brand recognition.
In 2003, Pantech began a strategic effort to brand its handsets for a mix of sophisticated and emerging markets in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Russia. Today it pursues this effort in Brazil, China and the United States, in tandem with production facilities and sales support in each market.
Pantech made another U.S.-centric splash in April at the CTIA Wireless 2006 trade show when Disney Mobile announced it would sell a Pantech-branded phone.