UPDATE: South Korean mobile operators KT and SK Telecom plan to commercially launch NFC by the second half of this year, rolling out NFC phones and, at least for KT, high-capacity SIM cards to subscribers to carry retail payment, transit-fare collection, and banking and loyalty applications, NFC Times has learned.
As reported earlier today by NFC Times, KT, which merged last year with mobile operator KTF, South Korea’s No. 2 operator, has disclosed its intention to try to buy a significant number of NFC phones from South Korea-based handset makers Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, along with SIM cards packing between 128 megabytes and 1 gigabyte of flash memory.
UPDATE: NFC Times has now learned that SK Telecom, the largest operator in South Korea and an aggressive player in the mobile-payment field, is also preparing an NFC commercial launch by the second half of the year–also with the intention of buying standard NFC phones from Samsung and LG, a source said. The telco also likely will issue high-capacity SIM cards. SK Telecom has been heavily invested in nonstandard dual-interface SIM cards or combi-card SIMs now used for mobile payment, ticketing and other applications by the major mobile operators in South Korea.
