Tag Archive for 'Samsung'

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Samsung Announce WiBro Mobiles

Published on November 19, 2005 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

samsung_mobile1Samsung is ready to demonstrate two new products at the 2005 APEC IT Exhibition, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

WiBro- the Korean brand name of Mobile WiMax comes to mobile phone handsets, bringing with it new functionality for broadcast, video phoning, VOD and navigation. Two handsets will be presented at the show- the phone style H1000 and the PDA style M8000.

The H1000 is a twisting clamshell phone, with a full QWERTY keypad, 2.2 inch LCD screen, dual 2 megapixel VGA cameras and an output to TV capability. The M8000 smart phone is billed at the mobile office demographic, focusing on easy email.

Samsung will also demo a WiBro PCMCIA card that can be used in laptops and Tablet PCs.

We are proud to present the world’s first WiBro terminals and latest DMB phones to the leaders attending the APEC meeting. The WiBro services will be commercialized next year and we will lead this market by providing innovative products to our consumers and provide a shift in paradigm to ease one’s lives, said Mr. Kitae Lee, President and CEO of Samsung’s Telecommunications Network Business.

Do You Already Have a Samsung Pocket Printer?

Published on May 1, 2005 in High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: .

Samsung Pocket PrinterFor almost a year now, a new generation of printers specifically designed for this purpose has emerged, with more compact and autonomous models, like this SPP-2040/2020 by Samsung. It’s not only autonomous (no need for a PC), but also compact and it accepts a wide variety of memory cards. It prints your precious pictures using a very interesting printing technology called D2T2 “Dye Diffusion Thermal Transfer”. The really big advantage of this technology is that it offers a very good print quality (just like your photo shop) at a high speed (between 15 and 50 seconds per picture, depending on the dimensions). Only thing missing here is a battery… with it, it would be the ultimate mobile photo printer.

Samsung Is Putting Songs In Its Heart

Published on April 20, 2005 in Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

samsungbrandIn recent years, the phone division of Samsung Electronics Co. has looked as if it might turn into a camera company. The unit — the world’s No. 3 handset maker — now integrates cameras into nearly every new phone it makes, with some models sporting optical zoom lenses and resolution of up to seven megapixels. Today, though, the Korean company seems to have a new ambition driving its phone development: music.

Since last summer, Samsung has introduced more than 20 phones that double as MP3 players. Of course, most of these handsets still include cameras, but music is the hot trend. The new models range from devices that store a few dozen tunes all the way up to the SGH-i300, a phone with stereo speakers and a 3-gigabyte hard drive that can hold 1,000 songs. “Music will be driving demand this year, like imaging was last year,” says Lee Kyung Ju, a Samsung vice-president.

The change dovetails with Samsung’s drive to unseat Apple Computer Inc. as the world’s No. 1 maker of music players by 2007. It’s an audacious goal, given that Samsung sold just 1.7 million players last year, vs. Apple’s 8.3 million iPods. But Samsung is serious about music. The company plans to bring out a half-dozen new stand-alone music players by summer, with an eye toward selling 5 million players — or 10% of the global market — this year.

Samsung is even more ambitious with its handsets. This year, it expects to launch scores of new music player/phone combos with features such as surround sound, a button for instant access to tunes, and a dial for playlist navigation. Samsung execs say that before long, most phones will double as portable jukeboxes with enough memory to hold hundreds of songs. And Samsung aims to stay at the forefront of the trend. “The mobile phone will be the center of digital convergence,” says Samsung President Lee Ki Tae.

The enthusiasm of Korea’s wireless carriers may give Samsung a leg up. The country’s operators have led the way in experimenting with the wireless music business. And Koreans have proved eager to buy music from the country’s operators, with 300,000 people now paying SK Telecom $5 a month for a service, launched in November, that provides unlimited access to tunes. Now, Samsung says it has deals to supply music handsets to U.S. carriers Sprint, Cingular, and T-Mobile. In the battle between the cell phone and the iPod, Samsung may well be the chief arms dealer.

Global Leaders

Published on April 18, 2005 in Emerging Markets and Global Strategy. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

global_leaders
Companies like HSBC, Samsung Electronics, and Ranbaxy Laboratories all champions from emerging markets have followed similar paths to global success. Each of them first forged distinctive ties in the difficult circumstances of its home market and then mastered the art of transferring its business DNA; the core skills and supporting organisational culture that help it make money, reliable, in diverse markets.

To pull of this trick, a company must train – and then trust – a cadre of global managers who understand its distinctive capabilities but are also independent enough to modify them to fit local needs.

Thus, to succeed in the wider world, a company must develop a cadre of talented international executives who carry its DNA – core skills and organisational culture – and have experience in diverse markets. After recruiting these men and woman, often from business schools around the world, leading global corporations use extensive apprenticeships and formal rotations through a wide range of functions to train them.

HSBC, for example, puts 400 handpicked international managers through a global-rotation program that trains them to respond quickly and effectively in troublesome situations. These managers learn to distinguish the nonnegotiable aspects of a business model from those that can be modified as necessary.

leaders

With the right group of executives, a company’s coordination process run smoothly because the participants have mutual trust, and dotted-line reporting relationships work because executives know each other well. They can conduct vital business informally – through social contacts – and job rotations give them a well-rounded perspective on the challenges in a variety of markets. The company avoids entrenched power structures and thus becomes stronger than any group of individuals within it.

Mobile Phone will change The World

Published on April 10, 2005 in Emerging Markets and High Tech & Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

samsung_mobileAs I already wrote about technical aspects of The Next Generation Mobile Phones, recently, however I had some follow-up thoughts within a broader context on this topic.

This summer, a new service will begin in Spain, and later spread to other European countries, to make mobile payments easier. Called Simpay, it is jointly owned by some of Europe’s largest mobile operators. Simpay is designed to function as a non-profit organisation with a common brand. The idea is that eventually all of Europe’s 70m mobile users will be able to click on a “buy with Simpay” logo whenever they use their mobiles to surf the web. Any purchases will then be charged to their mobile bill. If Simpay is anywhere near as successful as PayPal, eBay’s online payments system, it might give the banks a jolt: PayPal now has more than 60m account-holders worldwide.

As mobile phones are increasingly used for shopping, their appeal as a medium for reaching consumers at the point of purchase will grow. Along with services such as global positioning systems, which some handsets already provide, and software that can monitor online behaviour, a handset could offer all kinds of novel things – even telling you where to find that item you are searching for in the supermarket, and that it is on special offer.

“Anything that is screen-based will be able to be used as an ad-serving mechanism,” says Andy Jung, director of advertising and media for Kellogg’s. Other marketeers agree. The mobile phone is a very personal device: a faithful companion that nearly always stays with its owner.

Furthermore, the mobile phone is itself a powerful brand builder, as Samsung’s success has shown. From near-bankruptcy after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Samsung is now neck-and-neck with America’s Motorola as the second-biggest maker of handsets after Nokia. In terms of market capitalisation, the South Korean company is worth a lot more than Sony, which has long been the king of consumer electronics. Samsung was seen as a producer at the low end of the price spectrum and had a poor reputation for quality, especially in South Korea itself. Yet by concentrating on making handsets that worked better than its rivals’, at first in its home market and then for export, it improved its image. Good-quality handsets got people to look at Samsung’s other products, such as digital cameras and flat-screen televisions.

To conclude, the mobile phone will become an even more powerful marketing medium, says Vodafone’s Mr Wheldon. “But it is one where we proceed with gigantic caution.” People may use their mobile services differently in different countries, but consumers everywhere have one thing in common: they never seem to have enough time. If too many ads are pushed on to the screens of handsets, users could become dissatisfied with their service provider and get very annoyed with the advertisers, as they already do about “pop-up” ads on the internet. Whichever way mobile phone marketing evolves, Mr Wheldon says it must be “hugely respectful” of users and their time. Another victory, then, for consumer power.

Samsung Electronics

Published on March 31, 2005 in Emerging Markets. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

samsung_electronicsAccording to Interbrand<, a consultancy, Samsung has moved quickly and spectacularly from a typical OEM to manufacturing high-tech products, focusing on design and consumer growth. Samsung’s mission is to associate its brand in consumers’ minds with products that are beautiful, avant-garde and user-friendly.

In the past five years, Samsung has rebounded from the Asian financial crisis that devastated South Korea to emerge as a consumer-electronics giant with one of the world’s most-admired brands. As its mobile phones, LCD televisions and other consumer devices have grown increasingly popular, the Samsung name has simultaneously managed to make young consumers feel cool and leave executives of its rivals-even at giants like Sony-quaking with fear.

More on the Interbrand’s profile of Samsung can be found here.