Samsung plans to treble smartphone sales

By Song Jung-a in Seoul
Published: February 4 2010 10:01 | Last updated: February 4 2010 16:36

Samsung Electronics said on Thursday that it aimed to treble its smartphone shipments this year by expanding its line-up, as the South Korean group looks to catch up on rivals such as Nokia and Apple.
Samsung, which overtook Hewlett-Packard as the world’s biggest technology company by sales last year, has rapidly increased its global market share in conventional handsets to more than 20 per cent, making it second only to Nokia.
But the group still lags behind rivals in the fast-growing, high-margin smartphone market with only about 3 per cent market share, against Nokia’s 35 per cent and the 17 per cent held by Apple. “This year will be challenging for Samsung as the market faces increasing competition as traditional phone makers, smartphone makers and even PC makers enter the market,” Shin Jong-kyun, president of Samsung’s telecoms division, said.
“We plan to strengthen our smartphone business by not just improving our hardware offerings but also beefing up content, applications and services,” he said.
Smartphones – mobile phones that double as mini-computers – have been seen as one of the technology company’s few weaknesses.
Mr Shin attributed that to its software development and pledged to pay more attention to content and applications.
Samsung plans to make its applications available in more than 50 countries this year and make strategic alliances with global content developers.
Mr Shin said the company would roll out new smartphones this year using various operating systems including Google’s Android, but it would also push its own smartphone platform Bada.
Analysts say Korean handset makers such as Samsung and LG Electronics, face an uphill battle to become leading players in the smartphone market. But they predict Samsung, with its manufacturing edge, could steal some market share from Nokia, even in smartphones.
“Given its strong overseas sales networks and relations with operators, Samsung can double its smartphone sales this year with its increased portfolio although it will be harder to triple them,” said one analyst.
Research group iSuppli, has forecast global sales of smartphones will increase 32 per cent this year to 239m. According to Morgan Stanley the overall handset market is set to expand 10 per cent to 1.2bn units.

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smartphone as a handset device in korea are more popular than in any other mobile handset ,most users are younger even adult like it too. for more ...
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