Sean Shim

EE Times

(03/09/2006 8:53 AM EST)

SEOUL, South Korea — Targeting Europe, Samsung Electronics said it aims to grab 20 percent of the global mobile TV handset industry this year.

Samsung said Thursday (March 9) that Kitae Lee, president of its Telecommunications Business Network, predicted that the global mobile TV handset market will reach about 6 million units this year.

``A fierce competition among major mobile TV phone makers worldwide is expected this year,`` Lee was quoted as saying at the CeBIT show in Hanover, Germany.

Lee said Samsung would seek to raise its share of the European mobile TV phone market to 15 percent this year from 12.7 percent in 2005, asserting that Samsung’s fortunes will largely depend on success in Europe.

Lee disclosed that Samsung will soon supply 3.5G HSDPA-enabled (high-speed downlink packet access) phones to Vodafone in the U.K. and Cingular Wireless of the U.S. Lee said he expects the HSDPA phones to provide up to 7.2 Mbps services by the end of this year.

Asked about Samsung’s mobile phone strategy, Lee said it will soon introduce a smart phone equipped with a 20-Gbyte hard-disk drive.