Faced with a lack of demand for educational robots on the domestic front, two Korean mobile carriers and major players of the smart robot market are turning their eyes toward overseas markets.

Releasing its first and second smart robots named Kibot 1 and 2 in Korea two years ago, KT, the second largest mobile service provider, tried to capitalize on the new market.

The telecom firm, however, has suffered from slow sales and stock is piling up. Almost 20,000 units are in stock and not being sold, according to news reports.

Consequently, it has reportedly postponed the release of the next generation of the robot scheduled for the end of this year.

KT declined to comment on sales, saying, “the figure is not from an official source and the release of Kibot 3 has not been set yet.” 

Some critics say the smart robot business has already lost its attraction due to an exploding number of mobile educational applications which are “more accessible and portable” than a hunk of plastic and metal.

The hold on the new product and the disappointing sales results could hamper KT’s efforts to diversify its business portfolios to avert fierce competition in the domestic mobile market.

Signing a supply contract with Saudi Arabian mobile firm Mobily is part of a strategy to tackle the low demand in the nation, according to market watchers.

The Korean mobile carrier will export Kibot 2 units worth around 2.4 billion won.

“Doing business for educational robots in Korea is especially difficult since parents, considered the main purchasers of the robots, do not rely on electronic gadgets for their children’s education but on textbooks,” a market watcher said.

Meanwhile, KT’s long-time competitor SK Telecom, which unveiled its own smart robot, Albert, last December, is also gearing up to infiltrate overseas markets.

The largest telecommunications firm said Monday that it signed a contract to export 3,000 Alberts over the next three years to CommBox, a mobile network firm, in Malaysia.

In partnership with well-established, mid-sized firms such as Sound Pen, SK has now around 1,000 digital content packages for the robot this year, up from only 19 last year, according to the firm.

SK is also in negotiations with Robopolice Group, a French service robot distributor, to export the smart robots.

“Albert is run on the Android operating system, which makes the educational robot easier to upgrade and download applications than other competitors',” said an SK official.

The mobile carrier is now working on a new generation of robots, featuring better designs, more variety and tailored functions including speech recognition.

By Kim Young-won  (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)