The Korean Mobile Phone Industry: SMEs’ Strategy (Part II)

Many Korean mobile phone SMEs had employed the “follow-the-leader” strategy, or, the late mover strategy. As SMEs without brand power, they figured they could not take a risk of launching new products with new features in the market, lacking brand recognition and resources to educate customers. Hence, they waited and saw how the major companies got responses from the market after launching new products. Once they found out that a specific line of product seemed to be promising in the market, they then quickly imitated that model with differentiated industrial design. This was possible since they had retained technical know-how. Most of Korean mobile phone SMEs which pursue the “follow-the-leader” strategy had strong industrial design capacity, both functional and aesthetic levels.

Note: The rest of the analysis won’t be shared due to the proprietary nature of the content.