Samsung further consolidated its position as the world’s no.2 handset manufacturer, as it has recently reported a record number of cell phone shipments in the fourth quarter of 2009, pushing its global market share beyond 20 percent.For the three months ended December 31, the Korean based company sold a total of 68.8 million handsets, which is 30 percent up year on year and 14 percent up compared with the previous quarter. This enabled the company to reach 227 million shipments for the full year of 2009, a 16 percent uptick on the 196 million units sold in 2008.
Thanks to the strong sales, Samsung’s market share rose from 18.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 to 21.1 percent, according to research firm IDC. Samsung still ranks the second behind handset giant Nokia, but is also way ahead of another South Korean vendor – LG.
As for the whole company, its quarterly net profit rebounded to KRW3.05 trillion (US$2.64 billion) from a net loss of KRW20 billion in the same quarter of 2008, partly due to better sales of cell phones and flat screen TVs, as well as increased prices for computer memory chips.
For the ongoing year, Samsung expects positive growth across its businesses to continue. While forecasting a 10 percent growth in the overall handset industry compared with last year, it also plans to outperform the general market.
In addition, Samsung said it aims to triple its sales of smartphones this year from 6 million units in 2009. This is to be achieved by releasing a full lineup of smartphones based on a variety of mobile operating systems, which include Google’s Android, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, Linux and its own Bada OS. This move will probably bring Samsung into a head-to-head confrontation against big smartphone players like Nokia, Apple and Research in Motion.
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