Samsung is aiming high with its smartphones this year: the company plans to sell more than 60m units, 20% of its ambitious 300m total phone sales target for 2011.
It'll do so by expanding the range of smart devices it sells, lowering prices and launching models built on its own Bada platform.
So says Shin Jong-kyun, head of the company's mobile division, in an interview with the Korean press. He added that the company will showcase Bada at the IFA trade show in Germany at the beginning of September, as part of the launch of more models using the platform in the coming months.
Bada – the word means 'ocean' and 'seashore' in Korean – is described by the company as 'a new blue ocean of mobile applications for developers, and customers will have a wider choice of smartphones with cost-effective yet powerful bada-powered phones.
'The vision of bada is “Smartphone for Everyone”. bada’s main goal is not to compete with other existing smartphone platforms. Instead, bada will turn Samsung’s conventional customers into smartphone users by providing cost-effective smartphones.
'This means that bada will open and extend a new smartphone market, which does not exist in the current mobile market.'
Shin says that 'We will also be increasing our supply of smartphones to emerging markets. Once a wide range of smartphone and tablet products are introduced, the smart ecological environment will gradually form.'
And he's bullish about the company's Galaxy Tab 10.1 device (above), now being rolled out: although rivals have products already on the market, Shin says the Samsung unit is 'highly competitive in terms of hardware specifications. We expect rapid market expansion, especially in the business-to-business area.'
