Samsung is stepping up a two-pronged attack mounted over the past two years to expand its mobile phone market share with the imminent introduction of an upgraded version of its popular Omnia handset.
The blitz by the South Korean electronics major is backed by two weapons – dual SIM card mobile handsets and high-resolution phone cameras, most of which are supported by advanced features such as GPS and Symbian systems.
Over the past few months, the world's second largest mobile phone maker has launched at least nine handsets that are either armed with dual sim card slots or a powerful camera with a resolution of up to 8MPs.
A high-end handset, dubbed the Jet, was launched in Dubai and two other global cities this week while new models are set to be unveiled in the next few weeks.
The Samsung Jet, or S8000, weighing 99g, is armed with a 800MHz processor, five megapixel camera, 3.1in AMOLED screen, WebKit-based Dolfin browser and a host of media features including DivX support.
The touchscreen bar phone, measuring 109mm x 53.5mm x 11.9mm, is also equipped with advanced features such as WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, TV out, accelerometer for screen auto-rotate and turn-to-mute, electronic compass, and FM radio with RDS.
"Samsung Jet provides a seamless and unrivalled mobile experience," said Chuljin Kim, Vice-President Sales and Marketing Group in the Digital Media and Communications Business of Samsung. "Our aim is to deliver ultimate satisfaction to our consumers and I believe Samsung Jet answers the calls of today's mobile users who want smart features and easy-to-use user interface."
Dealers said the forthcoming models, which include the B5702 and I8910 Omnia HD, an upgraded version of the popular Omnia launched last year, are believed to be one of the main drivers in Samsung's sales growth.
According to the manufacturers, the Omnia will be the first to have high-definition video recording on mobile, the next generation of HD video recording.
"These two models are high-end handsets that will complement the advanced handsets launched recently. They will be launched in the next few weeks," said Amjad Faiz, salesman at Eros, Samsung distributors in the UAE.
Omnia HD has caused a big splash at this year's mobile world congress in Barcelona as it included more than solely cosmetic improvements.
In contrast with the original Omnia, which ran on Windows, the new one is a Symbian S60 device. While the Omnia HD does not stray from the design template, Samsung have attempted to give the Omnia HD a face of its own by giving it a metallic frame around the edge of the 3.7-inch display, which is a 16 million colour OLED touchscreen.
As customers would expect from a handset of its class, multimedia is the main selling point of the Omnia HD. The phone's music player application has a good set of media features and supports a wide range of formats.
But it is the onboard video player that has received the most attention when the handset was unveiled. The built in player has both DivX and XviD included and due to the massive screen it is really something to behold.
The display comes into its own and the Omnia HD is capable of playing clips at a very high bit rate due to its incredibly powerful CPU.
The camera onboard is a mighty powerful beast capable of taking 8 megapixel snaps and has a huge array of settings for you to tune your camera to get the best out of even the most challenging lighting conditions.
"But it is the realm of video recording that the Omnia HD makes a really big splash. The handset boasts the world's first HD video recording on mobile ," a Samsung statement said when the handset was unveiled.
The other handset, Samsung B5702, will have a dual SIM interface to become one of the only two dual SIM phones ever made with quadband support.
Samsung B5702 offers a large 2.4in 256K TFT QVGA display and provides two external LEDs that indicate which SIM is the default card for calls and messages. Another specific feature is dedicated side key that is used for choosing which SIM card to use for communication without rebooting the phone.
Samsung B5702 also boasts various multimedia functions including an MP3 and MPEG4 players, an FM radio with RDS and a three-megapixel autofocus camera. The Korean giant is also set to launch another Symbian handset in the UAE market, the L870, which has a three-megapixel camera and a 2.4in, 16 million colour TFT display. The 120g Samsung L870 is powered by the same Symbian OS and user interface as all Nokia N-series smartphones.
Samsung is the world's second largest mobile phone manufacturer, selling around 45 million handsets in the first quarter of 2009.
New mid range and high end handsets armed with dual sim card features and powerful cameras lifted its sales in the first quarter by 5.37 per cent over the last quarter of 2008 and expanded its market share to 19.9 per cent from 14.5 per cent.
Dealers in the UAE said the new handsets launched in the first half of this year and those to be marketed shortly would further strengthen the company's position in the Emirates and other Gulf markets, including Saudi Arabia.
"Nokia is still the unquestionable market leader in the UAE and Sony Ericsson is the second… but I think Samsung is quickly catching up with those two manufacturers following the launch of very interesting handsets," said Mohammed Jalal, manager of AMT, a major UAE mobile wholesaler.
Sold mobiles in Q1 2009
Company Million
Nokia 93
Samsung 54.8
LG 22.6
Motorola 14.7
Sony Ericsson 14.5
Blackberry 7.8
Apple 3.8
Others 27.8
Source: Gartner
Samsung's key phones
Model Camera (MP) Price
Innov8 8 Dh2,199
UltraTouch S8300 8 Dh1,899
F480 5 Dh 1,299
G400 5 Dh1,520
ACME 8 Dh2,999
Omnia 5 Dh2,399
*Omnia HD 8 Not announced
*L870 3.1 Not announced
D980 5 Dh1,699
S5233 3 Dh949
Jet 5 Dh2,250
* To be launched soon
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