Korean electronics giant, Samsung, today unveiled six new portable MP3 players and announced that it plans to take the fight for the MP3 market to Apple-whose iPod currently holds sway over 70% of the market for digital music players.
The six new models are aimed at helping Samsung triple sales this year. Samsung is the third-largest maker of mobile phones worldwide and is the biggest maker of memory chips. Samsung is currently ranked eighth in the global MP3 player vendor market. It plans to secure a 25-30 percent global market share and 50-55 percent of the domestic MP3 player market by 2007.
Kim Suh-kyum, vice president, Samsung Electronics, said, “We aim to sell more than 5 million MP3 players this year versus 1.7 million sold last year and will seek various strategic alliances with content providers such as Microsoft to boost sales," Kim added that Samsung was looking to grab a 10 percent share in the United States this year.
The new models are expected to be released in the first half of the year and boast of several exciting features like 256MB of flash memory, and 30GB hard drive capable of holding about 7,500 songs. The models also have color screens and radio tuners. Additional features include allowing people to watch music videos or take digital photographs.
