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Japanese and South Korean electronics companies are beginning to corner the U.S. and European mobile handset market, still dominated by Nokia. Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Sanyo Electric and Toshiba are the majority of new phones featuring Sprint PCS's new high-speed network. And AT&T Wireless Services phone was made by Sony Ericsson Mibile Communications. Because Asians have long been a more vibrant market for cellphones, Asian companies are now adept at market shifts and high-quality features (such as built-in digital cameras and color screens). In Japan, companies have spent a lot to develop handsets for 3rd-generation services to be shipped worldwide.

Motorola Inc. is the only telephone maker to bring out a thrid-generation mobile phone for the European market. The A820 will go on sale this fall for about $526, or between 600 euros and 800 euros. Motorola last year won an important three-year contract to supply the handsets to Hutchison Whampoa Group. Motorola is playing catch-up with Nokia, and experts estimate that the company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the development of 3G phones.

Microsoft Corp. and Samsung Electronics Company Ltd. are working to develop software and cellular telephones that can connect to the Internet and the 'wireless Web.' Consumers are moving toward using wireless, mobile communications and away from PCs and associated software. so Microsoft has been developing various ways for customers to link to the Internet and their personal computers at home and at the office. Aside from developing the operating systems software for Samsung's 'Stinger' cellular telephone, Microsoft is offering MSN Mobile, Mobile Explorer and Airstream software and the PocketPC hand-held device.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT) announces the world's smallest portable telephone, undermining Motorola Inc's technological edge in the Japanese portable telephone market. NTT's telephone will go on sale in Japan six months before Motorola introduces its smallest portable telephone, the Micro TAC. Previously, the Motorola telephone was blocked from distribution in Japan's most populous areas, which almost touched off a trade war in 1989. Japan eventually conceded, allowing Motorola to make its portable telephone service available throughout Japan, but by 1991, when Motorola's support arrangements are in place, NTT will have erased Motorola's technological lead.