South Korea dominates the world of smartphones with the Samsung and LG taking half of the world’s smartphone market. Taking into account only a sense of one-upmanship, it makes sense that North Korea may want to follow suit.

North Korea has unveiled its new smartphone, the “Arirang,” an Android clone named after a famous Korean folk song that’s also something of a national anthem. Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, visited a factory at his home turf Pyongyang specializes in the production of smartphones, although cellphone data services are still illegal in the country.

The so-called Arirang AS1201 operates with Android OS. Nothing more is known about the device yet. North Korea analyst Martyn Williams suspects the phone might have been produced in China and then quietly shuttled across the border so that North Korean workers can pretend to have built them.

“These phones are probably made to order by a Chinese manufacturer and shipped to the [North Korean] Factory where they are inspected before going on sale,” he said, as quoted in North Korea Tech.

Why the development is important?

The dictatorial country has two million mobile subscribers–whether the majority includes tourists or officials, no one knows. Kim Jong-un, who was accompanied by some Chinese media during the tour, said: “The phone could not be better.”

So far access to Internet in this country is limited to few individuals. Simple web pages of news magazines are not even allowed into the country. But the world is changing, North Korea pretends to adapt.

The visit of the great leader is sung as it should be by the release of the official news agency KCNA, which boasts the quality of a camera with many pixels.

“Kim Jong-un visited different parts of the plant, including the assembly line. He inquired in detail about the performance, quality and the housing of the mobile phone Arirang manufactured in this plant. [… ] After hearing what the performance of a touchscreen mobile phone, he said that mobile was convenient for the user when this part of the apparatus was sensitive. He noted that these phones will be very useful for their users because the camera has a lot of pixels.”

But the most likely explanation is the increasing demand of the North Koreans for smartphones, already available on the black market along the Chinese border. By flattering the patriotic “Made in North Korea” and offering an inexpensive and less dangerous for the regime simulated smartphone, Pyongyang hopes to deceive the population.

According to official figures, 450,000 North Koreans have mobile phones. But they cannot call abroad and obviously do not have Internet access, a reality that the regime hopes to continue with the new gadget.

Signs of Openness

The recent developments suggest signs of openness for North Korea. Since February, the foreign visitors to North Korea can surf freely on their smartphone using the 3G network Koryolink, the main operator in the country.

North Korea has only one chance, and that to open the borders and say the population that the debilitating past is finally over! Only with a cosmopolitan image, North Korean products would gain more attention.

Kim is also hoping that he can curb the smartphone demands by offering his own, easier-to-access smartphones to allow the government to monitor or at least prevent any infiltration of the national information cordon.