Will increase promotion of its Bada platform

Shin Jong-kyun, head of Samsung's mobile division, announced the company's goal to ship more than 18 million smartphones this year. Recognizing the shift away from hardware features, Samsung will change the way its smartphones are marketed by emphasizing content, applications, and services. The company is the world's second largest cellphone manufacturer with about 20 percent of the market but has only about 3 percent of the smartphone market, a deficit the executive feels Samsung needs to address.

The company's goal of shipping a total of between 260 and 270 million phones this year would represent an increase in shipments of more than 14 percent from 2009 and require faster growth than the overall market.

Samsung actually increased its share of the overall cellphone market last year. The company's dominant position has not carried over to the smartphone market, losing ground to newer offerings from Apple, Blackberry and Android-based devices.

Its launch of its Bada open development platform for smartphones late last year was partly ignored by handset vendors and developers, though the open OS is intended primarily for Samsung's own devices.

By Electronista Staff