Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Dec. 2, 2009

Late Tuesday, Samsung said it will exceed its goal of selling 200 million cell phones this year.

But the handset maker was also quick to point out that this doesn't necessarily mean higher profits in this increasingly competitive smartphone market.

Samsung also acknowledged that its margins continue to face a lot of pressure, and will certainly persist in 2010 and part of 2011 as well.

The company added that touchscreens now accounts for about twenty percent of total cell phones sold in 2009. That's up from about 5 percent last year.

The South Korean handset maker said that touchscreen phones were largely credited with increased sales, but also added that the iPhone's recent arrival to the Korean market may force the company to lower prices.

"Touch phones taking a bigger portion of mobile handset sales won't likely have a significant impact on profitability since manufacturers eventually have to lower prices to appeal to the wider public," Hanwha Securities analyst Seo Do-won said.

"What we have to set sight on is the smartphone market, in which Samsung is still weaker than Apple, RIM and even Nokia. Samsung has some strengths in high-function and some hardware products such as PC monitors, but is rather weak in software and various wireless services compared with some of its rivals," Seo said.

A few weeks ago, Samsung announced the launch of its own Samsung operating system called Samsung Bada, which will be available to developers sometime later this month.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Source: Samsung Electronics.