Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s largest maker of mobile devices using Google Inc’s Android software, is to release its first smartphone using the Tizen operating system about a year later than planned.
The Samsung Z will be available in Russia in the third quarter before expanding to other markets, the South Korean company said in a statement yesterday. The device will have a 4.8-inch screen and will be on show at the Tizen developer conference in San Francisco today.
Tizen, which is being developed with companies including Intel Corp and Vodafone Group PLC, is an open-source alternative to Android, the most popular smartphone operating system. Asia’s biggest technology company previously said its first phone using the platform would be released by the end of September last year, as it seeks to spark consumer demand amid slowing shipment growth and competition from cheaper Chinese producers.
“Samsung is trying to do anything to fill in the gaps in the third quarter, but I don’t think the Tizen phone will give a big boost to Samsung’s overall smartphone sales,” Lee Do-hoon, an analyst at CIMB Group Holdings Bhd in Seoul, said by telephone. “The release of the new phone is nothing more than symbolic as it’s at a very early stage.”
Samsung shares rose 0.8 percent to 1,455,000 won at the close of trade in Seoul. The stock has gained 6.1 percent this year after a 9.9 percent decline last year.
The new device enters a smartphone market where global growth is expected to slow to 6.2 percent in 2018 from 19 percent this year, research firm International Data Corp (IDC) said in February.
Samsung shipped 316 million smartphones last year, more than double the 153 million iPhones of second-ranked Apple Inc, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from IDC.
The Samsung Z in black and gold will feature a high-definition screen, a 2.3 gigahertz quad-core processor and a fingerprint sensor, the company said. The company unveiled two wristwatches using Tizen in February.
Samsung plans to offer a special promotional program through the Tizen application store when the device goes on sale as it seeks to attract more developers to build software.
The company’s mobile-phone business, which accounted for 76 percent of operating income in the first quarter, posted the lowest sales in five quarters as Chinese producers gain in emerging markets with cheaper, feature-packed devices.
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