Samsung aims 5-fold increase in tablet sales

Samsung Electronics Co, the world's second-largest handset maker, said it is on track to meet the company's sales target for tablet computers this year as Google Inc's Android software expands beyond mobile phones. "We already said early this year that we'll sell more than five times this year, compared with 2010," J.K. Shin, head of Samsung's mobile-phone division, said at a media briefing in Seoul, without disclosing a sales figure for 2010. "What we said early this year is still valid." The maker of Galaxy mobile devices is among companies counting on Android software to lure consumers away from Apple Inc and take a bigger share in the surging market for touch screen computers led by the iPad. The popularity of Android devices helped Samsung more than quadruple smartphone sales in the first quarter, according to IDC Corp. Samsung probably sold about 1.6 million units of its Galaxy Tab in 2010, according to an estimate by NH Securities Co in March. Apple sold 9.3 million iPads in the third quarter alone, the company said, reporting profit that topped estimates for the period which ended on June 25. Article continues below Quick improvement "Just like we grew fast in a short period of time in smartphones, we expect tablets to quickly improve," said Shin. The "ecosystem" of Google's Android software will expand quickly and boost demand for devices using it, he said. Separately, Lenovo Group Ltd said it will start sales of two new tablet devices in the US China's biggest maker of personal computers will take orders for the IdeaPad Tablet K1 from today, and start sales of the Thinkpad Tablet from August 2, it said. Samsung unveiled a new tablet computer with a larger screen than the Galaxy Tab in February, along with an update to its Galaxy S smartphone. The latest ten-inch tablet device, weighing 599 grams and 10.9 millimeters thick, is built with Android 3.0 Honeycomb software and equipped with a dual-core processor that allows faster Web browsing and multimedia-content viewing, according to Samsung. The model went on sale in South Korea today, following its debut in the US, Europe and Southeast Asia, Samsung said. Unveiling new device In smartphones, Samsung expects to begin selling its latest Galaxy model in the US in August, Shin said. The company also plans to unveil a new device running its own mobile software Bada in the second half of this year, he said. The company plans to make an announcement "soon" for a service based on so-called cloud computing technologies, Shin said.