Samsung eyes 40% global share

Dubai: South Korea's Samsung Corporation will supply 150 million mobile phones, or 13.63 per cent of the total worldwide production of 1.1 billion, this year a senior company official said yesterday.

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"Worldwide mobile handset production is expected to reach 1.1 billion and for a global population of 6.5 billion, this means nearly one in every six people in the world will be a mobile phone user," David Steel, vice-president of marketing at Samsung Electronics' Mobile Communication Division, told Gulf News yesterday.

Handset production last year touched nearly one billion while this year it will cross 1.1 billion, despite reaching increasing maturity, rating agency Fitch said on Thursday.

"Although average selling prices will continue to fall over the next three to four years given the growing importance of emerging markets, they will not collapse," it said.

"Vendor strategies are changing with companies such as Sony-Ericsson, Samsung and LG all seeking to expand into lower tier segments, with early results proving relatively good," Stuart Reid, a director in Fitch's European TMT team, said in a report.

Steel said, his company's market share was growing despite the market reaching maturity.

"Samsung's mobile handset sale will grow by about 40 per cent to 150 million handsets this year, up from 115 million, last year" he said.

Middle East and Africa (MEA) represents 10 per cent of its global production, he said. "The GCC is about half of this," Steel said.

Samsung generates $20 billion in revenue from the mobile handset business. About 10 per cent, or $2 billion, is generated from the MEA, Steel said.

"This is an interesting market for us, especially the Gulf and the UAE, as the appetite for high-end products is strong here."

Samsung has a 17 per cent share in the region's fast-growing handset market.

"Overall, we have positive outlook for this market."

"Interest for new technology in this market remains strong as professionals prefer to use the mobile handset to access their mailbox and remain connected through it."

He said Samsung will begin to concentrate on focused products for individual markets, including making basic products with add-on benefits to the users of remote locations in the developing markets.

Fact file: Samsung's vital stats