14 DAY TRIAL // South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics announced that it managed to sell its 50 millionth touchscreen-enabled handset during November. According to the company, this year alone it sold around 40 million touch-capable phones, a great increase compared to the 10 million such devices that it had sold during last year.
The handset vendor also announced that the achievement showed its leadership in the fast-growing market segment of touchscreen phones. The company sees this market area as having great potential, due to the fact that mainstream consumers are attracted by full touch screen phones that also sport impressive multimedia features and intuitive user interfaces.
“Samsung is on track to exceed its 2009 sales target of 200 million mobile phones, with full touch models accounting for approximately 20 percent of mobiles sold. Full touch screen models made up around 5 percent of Samsung's sales in 2008,” the company also said. During the last two years, the company has seen a great increase of touchscreen phone sales, due to diversification of its offering, from entry level to high-end.
Some of the most popular such devices from the company would be the Star (S5230), which was launched on the market in May and surpassed the 10 million sold units mark in six months; the F480, which was sold in more than 9 million units since May 2008; and the Corby (S3650) launched in September this year, and which already topped 3 million sold units.
“We've seen remarkable growth in full touch screen mobiles this year as consumers increasingly enjoy the user experience and convenience that these devices put at their finger tips," said JK Shin, executive vice president and head of Samsung Electronics' Mobile Communications Division. “Samsung's ability to deliver devices that appeal to a broad demographic of users has enabled us to accelerate the evolution toward full touch mobiles as mainstream devices. Samsung will continue to expand the global full touch phone market by introducing phones tailored to individual regions and user requirement with stylish designs, intuitive UIs and cutting edge features.”