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Sprint Nextel to buy Samsung high-speed phones

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CIOL Bureau
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SEOUL: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will sell high-speed Internet mobile phones to the third-biggest U.S. mobile operator Sprint Nextel Corp., the South Korean electronics giant said on Monday.

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The agreement follows Samsung's deal in December 2004 to sell third-generation EV-DO phones to Verizon Wireless, the second-ranked mobile operator in the United States.

EV-DO is based on the CDMA mobile phone technology popular in the Americas and parts of Asia, and U.S. mobile operators like Sprint and Verizon Wirelss are building the high-speed technology into their networks.

Samsung, the world's third-largest handset maker after Nokia and Motorola Inc., did not disclose the value of the deal or the number of handsets involved.

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Samsung said the latest deal would give the firm an upper hand in the U.S. EV-DO mobile phone market, which it forecast to grow to 12 million units in 2006 from an estimated 2.2 million units this year.

Samsung expects global mobile phone sales to reach 760 million in 2005.

Shares of Samsung were 0.9 percent higher by 0440 GMT, compared to the broader market's 1.3 percent rise.

Sprint Nextel was formed in August when Sprint bought Nextel Communications for $35 billion. Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc.

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