Samsung is on track to exceed its 2009 handset sales targets, but has acknowledged the need to boost its share of the smartphone market to counteract the industry's growing price pressures.
The Korean handset maker yesterday announced it was likely to exceed its forecast of more than 200 million phones shipped this year.
Samsung said it had lifted its share of the handset market above 20% for the first time this year. But its share of the smartphone market is currently just 4%.
Samsung spokesperson Lee Young-hee told FT.com the company is gearing up for a concerted push into the smartphone market. “Next year, we will put our whole focus and strategy on smartphones,” she said.
Next week's launch of Samsung's bada platform could be seen as the beginning of this effort. Bada will be an open platform designed to sit on top of Samsung's proprietary OS, allowing software makers to easily develop apps for Samsung phones.
Samsung has not given much detail about bada, but comes just as analysts warn that the global handset industry is in danger of becoming over-saturated. Handset ASPs have shrunk 1% this year.
The weekend launch of Apple's iPhone in Korea has also put it under pressure to lower prices in its home market, where local vendors often charge far more for their handsets than they do internationally.
Samsung has already slashed the price of its most expensive smartphone, the Omnia2, by up to two-thirds.
The iPhone attracted 65,000 pre-orders for carrier partner KT in the week leading up to the launch.