Until recently, Samsung had imported all of its third-generation mobile phone chipsets from Qualcomm of the U.S., which owns the core CDMA technology. But in April the Korean company developed its first phone equipped with an Infineon chipset and began exporting it in early May.

The move should give Samsung a better position in price negotiations with Qualcomm, and will likely have an enormous effect on negotiations by other Korean mobile phone makers who also source their chipsets from the U.S. supplier.

According to Samsung Electronics and local mobile phone industry insiders on Monday, Samsung finished developing a 3G mobile phone model equipped with an Infineon chipset in late April and began exporting it to European nations such as France on May 9.

Samsung plans to develop another Infineon-based mobile phone in June also for export to Europe and next year it will install Infineon chipsets in mobile phones destined for North America.

A senior Samsung Electronics executive said, "While they're more than 20 percent cheaper, Infineon's chipsets are not inferior to Qualcomm's in quality. We think we can get them at much lower prices in the future, and we can take the initiative in price negotiations with Qualcomm as well."

(englishnews@chosun.com )