BARCELONA, Spain - Google was one of the brightest stars at the Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest trade show for the mobile industry, thanks to its Android operating system and its increasing dominance in the global mobile industry.

And Google CEO Eric Schmidt went out of his way to highlight Korea’s role in the mobile industry’s march forward.

“Korea is just exploding with Android,” Schmidt said talking to reporters after a keynote speech at the congress. He said the penetration rate of Android devices in Korea is higher than in any other country in the world.

“[Korea] was one of our first targets,” he said, “because of the sophistication of the hardware manufacturers.”

Android was introduced in Korea just a year ago, but it has become the best-selling smartphone platform. Of the 8.97 million smartphones sold in Korea to date, 6.03 million, or 67.2 percent, run on the Android, according to industry data.

Google officials said such success was possible because of its partnerships with Korean companies.

“Two of our very large partners are Samsung and LG,” said Andy Rubin, Google’s vice president for engineering and the founder of Android. “I think it all comes down to partnerships we built and the relationships with both the operators and manufacturers. Android being an open platform, I think it was seized upon by these guys to help them build better products and to compete more effectively.”

Google joined forces with various handset makers including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Pantech and Motorola to release some 30 different smartphone models in Korea. Android phones are also available through all three Korean mobile carriers - SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ - while Apple’s iPhone is only available through KT.

Android overtook Nokia’s Symbian as the No. 1 smartphone platform in the world market in the fourth quarter of last year. Android now controls 33 percent of the total global market just two years after its release.

Schmidt’s keynote speech was one of the hottest events at the MWC. “Smartphones sales surpassed PC sales last week,” he said. “PCs are not catching up. Smartphones are the future of games, productivity, apps, everything we think about.”

On accusations that Google violated Korea’s telecommunications law by collecting data wirelessly for its Street View map service, Schmidt said the company “is not perfect.”

“A single engineer wrote codes that were unauthorized,” he said, adding that he believes the case will be resolved positively and that Korean authorities will eventually find out that such data collection was not intended.

Meanwhile, there have been rumors that the next generation iPhone will be arriving in Korea at the same time of its international release.

And rumors say it may be offered by more than one mobile carrier.


By Park Hye-min, Kim Hyung-eun [hkim@joongang.co.kr]