Samsung Electronics Co, which faces a slowdown in emerging market smartphone sales, will release its long-delayed Tizen-powered handset in India before the end of this year, a report said yesterday.
Samsung’s first Tizen-based device will be launched in November in India, Tarun Malik, director of Samsung’s Media Solutions Center in Southwest Asia, sai in an interview with the Economic Times.
The Tizen mobile platform is Samsung’s effort to build its own mobile ecosystem akin to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.
Samsung faces rising threats from local brands in China and India, which have hurt its sales of cheap handsets. The maker of Galaxy smartphones and tablets was beaten by Xiaomi in smartphone sales in China during the second quarter, according to Canalys, a market research firm.
In India, Samsung was overtaken by Micromax in mobile handset sales during the second quarter, according to Counterpoint Technology Market Research, a Hong Kong-based market research firm.
Samsung earlier this year shelved plans to start selling its Tizen-based Samsung Z phone in Russia during the third quarter. It said it needed to enhance the Tizen “ecosystem,” which apparently lacked sufficient developers and apps.
Smartphones based on Tizen are yet to be seen on the market, but Samsung has introduced Tizen in a camera and smartwatches. The company seeks to expand to other consumer durable goods, including TVs and refrigerators.
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Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San