SEOUL (Dow Jones)--South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE) said Thursday it aims to triple its global sales of smart phones this year as it seeks to gain market share in a lucrative, but increasingly competitive, part of the telecoms industry.
"We aim to sell more than 18 million smart phones this year compared to 6 million units sold (globally) last year," J.K. Shin, president of Samsung's telecommunications Division, said in a press briefing.
At that level, Samsung's smart phone sales would represent a small proportion of the 260 million - 270 million handsets it aims to sell this year. However, the sector's growth potential is seen as significant, and Samsung is aggressively increasing its smart phone lineup as competition has intensified in recent months.
Particularly significant for Samsung will be the domestic smart phone market, which it said it expects to grow to sales of 4 million-4.5 million units this year from 750,000 units last year, even as the country's total handset market is expected to remain broadly static in 2010 with sales of 23 million units.
To exploit that pent-up demand domestically, the company plans to launch its first Android-powered smart phone in South Korea market in late February or early March, Shin said.
The Android smart phone has already been available in overseas markets since July last year. Android is a mobile operating system which offers a number of enhanced services to users.
"The year of 2010 will be a challenging year for Samsung as handset companies, smart phone manufacturers and even PC makers are rushing to roll out smart phones to attract customers," Shin said.
To improve its chances of gaining market share, the electronics giant said it will roll out smart phones based on various operating systems, including its own operating software 'bada', Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android and Microsoft's Windows Mobile.
Samsung Electronics sold a total 227 million handsets, including smart phones in 2009, to achieve a market share of 20% and a double-digit growth in operating profit margin, the company said in a statement.
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