Only 120 3-band LTE-A phones are sold a day on average...'Barking dogs seldom bite'

The initial hullabaloo of the 3-band LTE-A smartphone ended up as a storm in a tea cup.

Even if the sales of both Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are combined, only 120 units are sold in a day. With short supply regarded as the main cause, the communication companies are harshly criticized for launching the service, for which they were not ready, to be called ‘the first company in the world to commercialize it.’

According to a market research firm Atlas Research on February 9, counting the 3-band LTE-A smartphones sold for a week between January 29 and February 4, 670 ‘Samsung Galaxy Note 4S LTE’ phones and 80 ‘LG G Flex2’ phones were sold. A week’s data and four days’ data were counted for the Galaxy Note 4S LTE and the G Flex 2 respectively. 95 Galaxy Note 4S LTE phones and 26 G Flex 2 phones were sold in a day on average. Even if the two models are combined, only 120 or so phones were sold.

Considering that the 3 mobile carriers were involved in a legal dispute over the title of the ‘first company in the world to commercialize it,’ the figures are dismal. In light of the fact that there are about 25,000 mobile phone distributors (agencies + shops) around the country, many of them did not sell even one 3-band LTE-A phone in a day.

The communications industry says that 3-band LTE-A is not unpopular. They are sold as soon as they are in stock. The problem is short supply. The instability of supply and demand was feared from the beginning. KT announced that it would officially release the Galaxy Note 4S LTE on January 21, but began to sell it two days later. SK Telecom sold its 3-band LTE-A phones only online at first. It was not until February 1 that LG Uplus could sell the terminals. SKT’s online store T Direct is not currently selling the G Flex 2.

Mobile carriers are advertising that the new 3-band LTE-A is 4 times faster than the existing LTE, but they are not advertising the terminals, which experts say is not unrelated to the present situation.

“It seems that mobile carriers had a too tight schedule even though they were not properly ready for commercialization in order to win the world’s-first title,” said Jang Joong-hyeok, vice-president of Atlas Research. “It’s like opening the lid of the rice cooker when the rice is not fully cooked.”