The S60H UMPC from Raon Digital supports 6hr of battery time.

UMPCs, multimedia devices and mobile printers to lead product growth in 2008

The mobile and digital home markets will fuel South Korea's computer product supply market in 2008. Multimedia players, in particular, are forecast to headline product development trends.

South Korea's production of laptops will continue to grow by at least 12 percent every year, while the desktop PC segment will contract by 2 percent annually, based on data from the International Data Corp. Although this is an indication that the region's computer product supply market is generally moving toward mobile, portable, smart devices, the need for South Korea to position its computer market at the high end to remain competitive will sustain both the laptop and desktop PC markets. Makers are finding the need to review their market positioning and strategy, and to narrow their product scope instead of pursuing a diversified lineup.

Meanwhile, the growing emphasis on converged products, although adding value and expanding the application base for the resulting hybrids, is increasingly being identified as a cause for additional costs. Royalty fees for video and audio codecs, as well as DRM, alone can take up 5 to 20 percent of production cost. Some companies said that convergence is exacerbating the burden caused by high royalty fees, as more licenses and royalties need to be processed to be able to accommodate the new features and applications.In addition to licensing fees, PC makers also face rising CPU and OS costs. To remain competitive, a growing number of South Korea makers are transferring their facilities to mainland China. Several companies have raised the need for cooperation and joint procurement of components to ensure high-volume and low-cost supply of key components, and thus, reduce production costs.

	Sarotech has introduced the MD-21 series of multiple-drive HDD external enclosures.

While computer makers struggle to battle strong competition in 2007, small and medium makers of PC peripherals and PC-related products noted strong performance this year. Multimedia devices, in particular, established a wider footprint, with specific product lines such as hard disk drive (HDD) storage, multimedia players and portable media players (PMPs) surging ahead more notably. AL Tech Inc. said that although the multimedia player remains to be an early-adopter market, user awareness of the product and its benefits is growing. The company expects that the market will continue to grow in 2008, with sales next year doubling from the 2007 figure.

Sarotech Co. Ltd, one of the leading PC peripheral makers in South Korea, supplies multimedia players, HDD external enclosures and network storage devices. Sarotech sees continued expansion in its multimedia player line, adding that in 2007 the major issues among makers in this line revolve around HDMI connection and H.264 codec.

According to Sarotech, South Korea's bullish multimedia player market is supported by the region's strong Internet infrastructure and the availability and variety of digital content. The supplier forecasts rising export volumes this coming year, aided by more new product releases featuring new functions such as personal video recording (PVR).

The mature PMP industry in South Korea is receiving a boost from the shift to converged products. More makers have started to move away from basic PMPs toward more multimedia-enriched products with navigation functions.

In 2007, educational PMPs, also called 'portable content player' also emerged on the market. Maxian Co. Ltd is developing a flash-based PMP that will not require file format conversion.

This year, the major development in South Korea's HDD market is SATA HDDs. SATA caught up with IDE HDD in terms of transmission speed. The former is likewise smaller and less expensive than IDE HDDs. Beginning mid-2007, devices with SATA support have been rising, and makers project more SATA-enabled HDDs will be rolled out in 2008.

Sarotech forecasts that SATA will be incorporated into more than 50 percent of its HDD products in 2008. The company will release multiple-drive external enclosures. Its MD-21 series will support two HDDs, and the second-generation model will support up to four HDDs. Sarotech also plans to introduce photo storage devices in 2008.

South Korea's UMPC market will expand in 2008, mainly through the entry of more suppliers. Many makers of PMPs and navigation devices have announced plans to enter this market and release their first UMPCs in early 2008. More companies are looking at the UMPC line as the convergence point of digital mobile multimedia applications.

Makers in South Korea released their second-generation products beginning mid-2007. These products are designed to address battery- and keyboard-related issues in the first generation of products, according to Raon Digital Co. Ltd.

Raon Digital launched its first UMPC in H2 2007. The company's S60H UMPC claims to have the longest battery capacity at up to 6hr.

It supports various storage types, including HDD, solid state disks (SSDs), SSD plus HDD, and SSD plus Compact Flash (CF) or Secure Digital (SD). The model has a full QWERTY keypad, an optical touch mouse and a touchscreen LCD with auto rotation. For wireless Internet service, it supports both WLAN and Bluetooth. The hardware is ready to install HSDPA and WiBro.

The growing practice of printing from mobile phones and PDAs, even from POS systems, will provide a catalyst to the mobile printing market in South Korea. A growing number of POS makers have been expanding into the industrial mobile printer market since 2007, so the supplier base could grow further in the coming months.

Woosim Systems Inc., which focuses on mobile, panel and desktop printers, has a rosy outlook for industrial mobile printers.

Product customization is key to growth in this line, according to the company, to ensure that mobile printers are compatible with mobile phones, PDAs and POS systems. Woosim said that small and medium-sized companies could leverage their ability for easy customization to be competitive in this line.

Woosim exports 60 to 70 percent of its output of mobile printers. Its major market is the US, where mobile printers are used for payment systems. The company is currently undertaking R&D on new wireless models. Its current products support Bluetooth and IrDA.

Meanwhile, the consumer portable photo printer industry is also experiencing an uptick. In 2007, global makers such as Sony, Epson and Kodak released their portable printers for digital camera users. More suppliers in South Korea are expected to invest in this line in the near term.