Samsung aims to be no 2 handset vendor In Europe
Computerwire - May 08, 2001 at 08:08 GMT
South Korea's Samsung Electronics is aiming to become Europe's no 2 mobile handset vendor after Finland's Nokia on the strength of its 2.5G GPRS phones.
Samsung will start selling the phones in late May, with German operator T-Mobile as its first contracted customer, according to senior vice president Park Sang-jin. "We are at the final stage of negotiations with T-Mobile and we will be able to provide about 50 000 GPRS phones to them by early June," he said. "By the end of this year, we will be able to sell our 2.5G phones in most European countries". Park predicted GPRS sales in Europe of about half a million units this year, and up to 8 million - representing a 10 percent market share - by 2003.
He said GPRS phones are expected to overtake GSM phones and emerge as the preferred mobile handset in the next four or five years in Europe as network operators there were delaying investments in third-generation services.
"The chances of Samsung emerging as Europe's number-2 mobile handset provider are quite high as global players like Ericsson and Motorola are suffering from excess inventories," Park said. He noted that Nokia, the world's top-ranked mobile provider with a 30 percent market share, is likely to retain its position in Europe's 2.5G market when it launches sales of its GPRS phones later this year.
Samsung was a late entrant into the GSM market and last year had a 3 percent share of the European market, but it has done its homework on GPRS and will get in at the very beginning, Park said.
Sales of GSM phones account for roughly 45 percent of Samsung's worldwide mobile phone sales, with the rest coming from CDMA (code division multiple access) and TDMA (time division multiple access) handsets. Park said Samsung aims to sell 28 million mobile handsets this year, up 27 percent from last year, with exports jumping 30 percent to 22 million units.
Additional links:
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Samsung Electronics wins USD 650m Chinese CDMA contract
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Nokia re-start in Korea receives praise |
