Samsung Electronics has emerged as a power providing credible challenges to the mobile-phone king Nokia. But when it comes to smartphones, the South Korean giant is a minnow. While Apple and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion are setting new trends in the fast-growing segment of the global handset market, Samsung has had a hard time trying to grab consumer attention.
Now, executives at the company seek to shoulder their way into the smartphone big leagues. Samsung last week introduced five new models sporting features comparable to Apple’s iPhone. “Our business focus this year is to establish a strong presence and lay a foundation for further growth in the smartphone area,” says Hong Won Pyo, executive vice-president in charge of product strategy at Samsung’s mobile communication division.
The rush to bolster its standing in the highest end of the handset market is understandable given Samsung’s disappointing presence there. Although the Korean company overtook troubled Motorola as the world’s second-largest mobile-phone maker in 2007, and increased its share in the overall handset market to more than 18 percent in the first quarter of this year from around 12 percent two years earlier, its smartphone share stood at only 3.5 percent, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. That’s a big problem since the research firm forecasts global sales of smartphones will rise 31 percent this year, almost five times faster than the total handset industry.
More Than 20 Smartphone Models Due
Samsung’s approach is starkly different from Apple’s. While the real beauty of the iPhone and its latest successor, the iPhone 3G S, lies in the creative use of the iTunes Store to inspire a myriad of third-party developers to write applications for the phones, Samsung’s emphasis is more on hardware. To expand its presence, Samsung plans to keep rolling out new lineups of smartphones — more than…