The majority of 5G new models are Galaxy, KDDI and Samsung Electronics “honeymoon” reason

KDDI announced six new 5G smartphone models on September 26th. All smartphones to be released in the future will be compatible with 5G.

KDDI says that sales of 5G smartphones are sluggish due to the shortening of store hours due to the corona crisis and smartphone discount regulations due to the revision of the Telecommunications Business Act in 2019. From the new terminals and future lineup, you can see how KDDI wants to realize the early spread of 5G.

However, looking at the lineup of new terminals this time, Sharp and Sony Mobile Communications have one model each among the six models, and the remaining four models are Samsung Electronics' Galaxy series and Samsung Electronics' terminals. I know there are many. In addition to these three companies, the lineup announced at the start of the 5G service in March 2020 also incorporated many terminals made by Chinese manufacturers, but this time there was no adoption of terminals made by Chinese manufacturers. It highlights the number of electronic terminals.

Looking at KDDI's recent trends, it seems that they are actively dealing with Samsung smartphones. In fact, in 2019, we exclusively sell the folding smartphone "Galaxy Fold" that became a hot topic, and even in 2020, expensive terminals with major features such as "Galaxy Z Flip" and "Galaxy S20 Ultra" is sold exclusively by au.

With the exception of Apple, which offers the "iPhone," where the three major mobile phone companies competed fiercely for adoption and sales, there are not many cases in which a specific smartphone manufacturer and a mobile phone company have such a close relationship. is not. Why is KDDI actively adopting Samsung Electronics terminals and trying to strengthen their relationship?

5G infrastructure and US-China friction in the background

There are two main reasons for this. One is that the relationship with Samsung Electronics is not limited to smartphone terminals.

And both companies seem to be actively working on 5G demonstration experiments and technical verification. Recently, on September 30th, we announced that we had successfully completed an end-to-end network slicing demonstration experiment in a 5G standalone configuration.

In other words, since KDDI uses both Samsung Electronics' terminals and networks, it will deepen its relationship and cooperate with the company, which has knowledge of 5G in countries such as South Korea, which is leading the way, toward the early spread of 5G. I want to get it. For Samsung Electronics, while the terminal business is a major player competing for the top or second place in the global market share, the share of the communication equipment-related business is small. It can be said that the aim is to lead to the expansion of sales of telecommunications equipment.

And one more thing, the US-China friction is also considered to have a big impact. I think many people know that the impact of US-China friction has had a major impact on the telecommunications industry due to sanctions on China's Huawei Technologies, etc., but the conflict between the two countries is only deepening and there are signs of improvement. has not been seen, and the impact is expected to continue for the time being.

KDDI, which has increased the lineup of Chinese manufacturers with an emphasis on price, is in a situation where it cannot easily increase its dependence on Chinese companies. For that reason, I think KDDI wants to get closer to Samsung Electronics, which is a Korean manufacturer that is less susceptible to the US-China conflict and has an extensive 5G lineup.

However, since the relationship between Japan and South Korea is by no means a good one, there may be a certain risk in increasing dependence on Samsung Electronics. However, as the strength of domestic manufacturers weakens and the number of options is decreasing year by year, we have no choice but to rely on overseas companies, especially those in South Korea and China, which have high market shares, to procure terminals and other equipment for the expansion of 5G. is also true, and in a sense, it may be said that KDDI has made a difficult decision.

Masahiro Sano

From Fukushima Prefecture, graduated from Tohoku Institute of Technology. After working as an engineer in the development of digital content, he became a writer specializing in mobile phones and mobile phones. Currently, he writes in a wide range of fields related to mobile phones, from industry trends to culture.