[THE INVESTOR] South Korean mobile phone maker Pantech’s new mid-tier smartphone Sky IM-100 is selling quickly in the Korean market, with some 30,000 units sold since the model’s launch two weeks ago.

About 7,000 units of the Sky IM-100 were preordered in June, and daily sales since the model hit the market on June 30 have averaged at 2,000 units, according to SK Telecom and KT, the two mobile service providers that are selling Pantech’s new budget smartphone here.

SKT and KT have reportedly placed additional orders for the Sky IM-100, while Pantech has been kicking up production of the handset, aiming to manufacture some 2,000 to 3,000 units a day at its plant in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province.

“Though it’s hard to say the Sky IM-100 has taken the local smartphone market by storm, it is certainly performing above market expectations,” said an official from a local telecom company.

Following a two-year hiatus, Pantech had returned to the market with hopes of taking a lead in Korea’s lower-priced smartphone segment, which has been quickly expanding on the back of a rising number of customers seeking cheaper alternatives to expensive, high-spec smartphones.

Korea’s second-largest mobile phone maker LG Electronics also sells a number of budget smartphones under the X Series, standing as Pantech’s biggest competitor in the segment.

Priced at 449,000 won ($388), the Sky IM-100 has a simplistic design, high-end audio technologies and wireless charging features as its main strengths in place of its relatively weaker hardware specifications -- all elements which have successfully appealed to local customers, market watchers said.

“Rather than focusing on specs only, we thought hard about what’s really the best for our customers and (tried to) increase user convenience,” Pantech president Moon Ji-wook had said at the time of the smartphone’s launch in June.

Pantech’s new smartphone features a 5.15-inch display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 mobile processor, 32GB of internal storage and 2GB of RAM. It runs on the Google Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system.

Most notably, the new smartphone has a wheel attached on the side to help users navigate the device’s menus and functions with more ease. It also comes equipped with a Bluetooth speaker that activates when a smartphone is placed on top of it,

The firm said it planned to keep up its performance to meet its sales target of 300,000 units by the end of this year, expressing its “sincerest gratitude” to local consumers who have chosen Pantech over other brands.

In preparation, Pantech has expanded the number of its nationwide service centers to 65 and is reviewing the option of granting customers a temporary phone to use while their own phones are under repair. It is also reportedly planning a software upgrade for the Sky IM-100.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com">jys@heraldcorp.com)