Samsung hinted that it may make announcements about a phone running a dual-core processor, new tablets including some running Honeycomb and new Windows Phone 7 models at Mobile World Congress in February.
Executives from the company discussed an array of topics about mobile devices at a press event at CES in Las Vegas on Thursday, often saying that it plans to make more announcements next month.
The company plans to unveil a rich, next generation tablet portfolio at the conference in Barcelona in February, JK Shin, president of Samsung Mobile said. It will also discuss more about plans for tablets running Honeycomb, the new version of Android that is designed for tablets. Motorola beat Samsung in that regard, announcing the Xoom tablet this week, which is one of the first to run the new software from Google.
The Samsung executives sought to deflect credit for the growth in tablets away from Apple, which is often regarded as a tablet leader because of its popular iPad. “Tablets are not new,” Omar Khan, chief strategy officer for Samsung Telecom America said. “The form factor has been around for several years. Key I think to the explosion is the readiness of the platforms and ecosystems.” The advance of touch technologies and improved user experiences helped too, he said.
Samsung contends that its tablets were designed internally and were not influenced by other companies.
Samsung was reluctant to reveal projections for tablet sales in 2011 in part because market forecasts from analysts vary so widely.
In mobile phones, Samsung expects to beat the market this year. It is expecting overall market growth of around 10 percent and said it will grow slightly better than that. It will likely release about the same number of new models this year as last year, Shin said.
Samsung was among a handful of companies that introduced the first phones that will run on Verizon’s LTE network on Thursday. All the LTE phones run Android.
Shin wouldn’t reveal much about plans for additional Window Mobile 7 phones. The Samsung Focus, introduced late last year, is one of the more popular Windows Phone 7 devices. “We will continue to keep our partnership with Microsoft,” Shin said. He said Samsung will have more to say about potential LTE Windows Phone 7 devices in February.
Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com
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