re: Samsung, LG Faceoff
>> Samsung, LG Vie For More Handset Market
Cho Hyeong-rae
chosun.com
01/22/2002
The nation's two largest electronics firms, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, have been engaged in a fierce battle to win more shares of the mobile handset market, not only in Korea but also in China.
Up until last year, Samsung enjoyed a clear edge over LG in domestic sales and exports of handsets, but this year, LG has taken the initiative with aggressive marketing tactics, including debuting a new cellular phone brand in color and stepping up its preparations for advancing into the Chinese mobile market.
Samsung occupied the largest share of the domestic handset market at 48 percent and LG was well behind with a 25-percent share last year. This year, LG introduced a new mobile set whose monitor features 65,000 different colors. The company said the new item has become popular among young Koreans.
An official at LG said his firm's core marketing strategy this year is to overtake its rival by debuting more cutting-edge products. The company plans to expand its handset market share to 35 percent this year.
LG also said that it signed an export contract to ship a total of 500,000 units of its GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) handset, a 2.5-generation GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) model, to China. The GPRS unit features high-speed Internet service.
Samsung countered the LG product with a new model that has a built-in TFT-LCD monitor that is usually used for notebook PCs. Samsung said that the new monitor is a highly advanced one in terms of visual definition.
Samsung also plans to tap China's GPRS market in March this year. The world's largest memory chipmaker also has ambitious plans for this year, clinching the third ranking in the global mobile handset market, following Nokia and Motorola. <<
- Eric - |
