Samsung boosted by new tablet PC
Company displays latest challengers against Apple Inc's iPad and iPhone
BARCELONA, Spain - Shares in Samsung Electronics Co rose the most in two months in Seoul trading after the company unveiled a larger tablet computer and an update to its Galaxy S smartphone, intensifying a battle with Apple Inc in the mobile-devices market.
Samsung jumped 4.2 percent, the biggest gain since Dec 2, to 953,000 won ($850) at the close of trading on Monday in Seoul.
The world's second-largest maker of mobile phones introduced the phone and tablet, both running Google Inc's Android operating system, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Sunday.
The latest Galaxy tablet has a 25.7-centimeter screen, matching the iPad, and Samsung plans a series of mobile entertainment applications to compete with Apple's iTunes.
The Galaxy devices are at the center of the company's efforts to challenge Apple's mobile products and to more than double smartphone sales to 60 million units this year.
"Samsung phones are doing well and they are catching up with Apple pretty fast," said Kim Young-chan, an analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp in Seoul. "In tablets, their previous size was a bit ambiguous, but they still did pretty well. The real competition begins now as they have a similar size to Apple's iPad."
Samsung said it will also introduce a series of "integrated mobile applications" for downloading music, books and games, similar to Apple's iTunes entertainment portal. The new tablet is named the Galaxy Tab 10.1.
Tablets using Android software boosted their share of the global market almost tenfold in the fourth quarter, a researcher at Strategy Analytics said on Jan 31.
The latest device from Samsung, 10.9 millimeters thick and weighing 599 grams, is built with Android 3.0 Honeycomb software and equipped with a dual-core processor that allows faster Web browsing and multimedia-content viewing, Samsung said in a statement.
Since sales began in October, Samsung has sold 2 million units of the 17.8-centimeter Galaxy Tab, its first Android-based tablet, as of the end of last year, according to Nam Ki-yung, a spokesman for Samsung.
Apple sold 4.19 million iPads in the quarter which ended in September. The South Korean company is also looking to build on the popularity of its Galaxy S smartphone with the Galaxy S II.
The 8.49 millimeter-thick device is built with Android software and features a 10.8-centimeter display using the latest active matrix organic light-emitting diode, or AMOLED, technology called Super AMOLED Plus, Samsung said.
Samsung almost tripled its share of the global smartphone market to 9.6 percent as shipments rose more than fivefold in the fourth quarter, helped by sales of the Galaxy S, according to the research firm International Data Corp on Feb 8.
Samsung sold 10 million units of the Galaxy S in 2010 after introducing the model in June, the company said on Jan 3. Samsung has said it aims to double sales of smartphones this year.
Apple's iPhone and devices based on Android together accounted for about 53 percent of smartphone sales worldwide last year, according to Gartner Inc, crowding out competing offerings from companies including Nokia Oyj and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd (RIM).
Samsung aims to sell 60 million smartphones this year, Shin Jong-kyun, head of its mobile-phone division, said in January.
The target is in line with Goldman Sachs Group Inc's forecast in December to sell 61 million units this year. Samsung may replace RIM as the world's third-largest seller of smartphones this year, Kim at Shinhan Investment said.
The company has become the manufacturer of choice for Google Inc, building the search-engine owner's flagship Nexus S Android phone.
That device, along with the updated Galaxy S, is equipped with near-field communication payment technology that will eventually allow mobile users to pay for retail transactions with a wave of their phones.
Bloomberg News
(China Daily 02/15/2011 page16)
