Samsung aims to double European revenue by 2015

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest maker of TVs, memory chips and flat-screen panels, said Friday that it plans to double its annual revenue in Europe by 2015 by boosting TV and handset sales. Samsung expects to generate US$24 billion revenues in the European market this year and wants to reach $50 billion in 2015, Choi Gee-sung, Samsung's chief executive officer and vice chairman, said in a statement. "Europe and other developed markets are forecast to post slow growth for a while, but with our strength in TVs and handsets, we will produce more No. 1 products in the market," Choi told reporters on the eve of Europe's largest consumer electronics show, according to the statement. Samsung vaulted into global prominence with its forte in electronics hardware like flat-screen TVs and mobile phones. Now the company plans to ramp up its mobile and computer software business, Choi added, in tandem with the latest global trend. "The most important thing is the ability to integrate hardware, software and service," Choi said. "Samsung will boost core software talents based on its strength in hardware." Despite raking in record-high annual revenue in 2010 and a fast improvement in the smartphone business, a sense of alarm began to sweep over South Korea's largest-cap company this year. The company saw a sharp decline in its profits in the first six months of 2011, hit by weak global demand, and it is entangled in a drove of lawsuits with Apple Inc. over smartphone and tablet patents. Its key mobile ally Google Inc. announced last month that it will acquire handset maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., a move that many observers said could create new competition between Google and Android device makers like Samsung. Choi said Samsung will try to take advantage of the power migration underway from longtime electronics hardware makers to mobile and Internet companies whose venturing into new business areas continue to blur the line between hardware, software and service. "The IT (information and technology) revolution is an opportunity to leap forward," he said. "Although global economic growth is slowing down ... smart TV, smartphones and tablet PCs will post high growth." By 2015, global demand for TVs will increase to 300 million units from 260 million this year. Smartphone demand, in the same period, will explode to 900 million units from 450 million while demand for mobile PCs will double to 470 million, according to Samsung's estimate. Samsung, whose Galaxy series of tablet PCs are seen as the closest competitor to the tablet juggernaut iPad, aims to increase its annual tablet PC sales by five times by 2015.