Samsung to Release Bada Phone in March, Target Smartphone Market
Despite being the second largest handset maker in the cellphone industry, Samsung has continued to lose ground to other manufacturers, especially in the smartphone market. Samsung's new operating system, called Bada, is supposed to boost their presence in the smartphone arena, and it looks like Bada might show up sooner than expected.
The president of Samsung's handset division, Shin Jong-kyun, said the company's first Bada phone will be available this spring.
"Currently, Bada does not have a prominent presence in the market. But we plan to launch our first Bada phone in late March or early April globally... we seek to make a big success with Bada," Shin said at a Samsung press conference.
Bada will replace the Symbian platform Samsung has been using. It will allow for more flexibility and features on Samsung phones, including 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, multitouch screens, Flash, Web browsing, motion sensing, face detection and apps . Samsung has even signed on Electronic Arts and Gameloft to make games for the Bada operating system.
The Bada phone is part of Samsung's plan to increase its smartphone sales, but it's not the only tactic the company with use. Samsung will continue to release Android phones, including the first Android phone to feature video-calling, to supplement sales. All this is intended to help the company reach a lofty goal for the year.
"We aim to more than triple our smartphone sales to 18 million units this year," Shin said. "We aim to achieve shipment growth of double the market growth this year. We target 260-270 million units sales."
Samsung will face stiff competition as more manufacturers create Android phones, not to mention the new versions of the iPhone and Windows Mobile that are expected to be released this year.
