Seo Choon-Gil , Axess Telecom CEO

With a view to attracting the younger end of the market where loyalty toward DMB is judged to be high, Axess Telecom is poised to become a leader in supplying content for this exciting new medium. In an interview with The Korea IT Times ahead of the launch of the company's DMB terminal, Axess Telecom CEO Seo Choon-Gil said he aimed to take a commanding position in the market prior to focusing on exports by offering various models Mr. Seo said he believes that the market for DMB terminals will be huge since over 80% of respondents in a Japanese survey two years ago expressed preference for a portable TV terminal. Since Axess Telecom completed development of its satellite DMB terminal, dubbed 'SENCIO', the company witnessed positive responses from consumers toward its product at a DMB exhibition held in December 2004 at the COEX in Seoul. The CEO said that the success of DMB services depends on offering moderately priced terminals, adding Axess Telecom will provide a model priced below 400,000 won. The company will initially offer two low priced models: a 2.8-inch color TFT LCD terminal and 3.5-inch product that will be introduced according to trends in the marketplace at the time. SENCIO's functions include an MP3 Player, moving-screen player, multimedia functions such as digital camera/camcorder, a 220,000-word English-Korean electronic dictionary, a 110,000-word Korean-English electronic dictionary, plus educational functions such as games, text viewer, diary/clock, and voice recording. CEO Seo explained that Axess Telecom also plans to include a traffic safety terminal function that combines telematics and DMB. Axess Telecom plans to offer over 100,000 satellite DMB terminals in the domestic market and looks forward to exporting to Japan market also. "Next year, we will build our quality and price competitiveness to be able to export terminals to those nations preparing for their DMB launch," he said. Mr. Seo believed there was strong opportunity in the DMB export market, adding that Japan had already commenced DMB services and some European countries, particularly France are expressing great interest in the Axess terminal. Right now, the company's R&D staff numbers 30 people, but will be continuously augmented, aiming at accomplishing revenues of over 50 billion won this year in DMB terminal sales, Mr. Seo said. As part of Axess Telecom's business integration plan, its different businesses, such as WLL, GPS, SI plus DMB will be promoted as an integrated whole, he said. For instance, Axess Telecom makes small-sized CDMA modules by combining CDMA technology with GPS, LBS and telematics and systems. More information is available at www.axesstelecom.com or at (82-2) 549-8402.