Samsung launches larger Galaxy Tab in S. Korea

(ATTN: CORRECTS official's name in para 5)
By Lee Youkyung
SEOUL, July 20 (Yonhap) -- Samsung Electronics Co., the world's second-largest maker of mobile phones, launched a new version of its Galaxy Tab in South Korea on Wednesday, hoping to lure consumers away from Apple Inc.'s iPad with a larger, faster and lighter tablet computer.
Samsung released in its lucrative home market the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the first of its new tablet computers that are expected to be released in two different sizes this year.
Samsung is among the leading Android tablet vendors that are trying to steal a bigger pie of the nascent yet promising tablet PC market that is ruled by the iPad. It was the largest Android tablet maker in the first three months of this year but still lagged behind Apple's iPad, according to Strategy Analytics, a market research firm.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the second tablet PC for Samsung, which introduced the 7-inch Galaxy Tab in October of last year. The new tablet PC, Samsung's mobile president said, will help the company catch up to market leader Apple.
"As we were able to grow our smartphone business in a short period of time, the tablet PC business will also improve a lot very quickly," Shin Jong-kyun, Samsung's mobile president, said in a media briefing. Shin was recently named to double as the electronics giant's camera business chief.
He repeated the company's tablet PC sales target released earlier this year, saying that Samsung aims to sell 7.5 million units, up about five times from 2010. Strategy Analytics estimates the global tablet PC market will reach 60 million units.
Apple sold nearly 14 million iPads in the first half of this year, including 9.25 million iPads in the April-June quarter, it said earlier in the day. The spike in iPad sales helped the company to post a forecast-beating profit in the period.
Shin said Samsung will disclose its smartphone sales figures when the company announces its earnings next week.
Samsung will introduce various tablet PCs to cater to diverse demand. Larger tablet PCs will meet demand for multimedia content, such as watching movies, Lee Young-hee, Samsung's executive vice president of mobile business, said.
"If the 7-inch product was optimized for portability, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is optimized for multimedia consumption and Web browsing," she said. "It is also very thin and weighs just as much as a cup of takeout coffee."
The retail price for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 for the South Korean market starts at 670,000 won (US$634), hovering above the cheapest version of the iPad 2, which starts at $499 in the United States.
The 8.6 millimeter-thin tablet computer weighs 570 grams and is powered by a 1-gigahertz dual core processor. The model for the Korean market supports the digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) service, which is popular for browsing TV shows.
With the release of the new tablet PC in South Korea, Samsung expanded its rivalry with Apple on one additional front. The Korean company, also Apple's major chip supplier, is embroiled in lawsuits with Apple in at least five countries since the iPhone maker sued Samsung in April for "blatantly copying" its products. Samsung countersued Apple for infringing its patents.
Separately, Samsung issued a statement on Tuesday saying that it asked a local mobile accessory maker to pull from the market a case for the Galaxy Tab that consumers may confuse with its rival company's product.
"All accessories with the 'Designed for Samsung Mobile' logo must be approved by Samsung. But the product was not approved by Samsung," the company said in the statement explaining the reason the case was pulled off the Web site of Anymode, the accessory maker.
"In the future, Samsung will not approve smart case products that could be mistaken for other companies' products."
News reports earlier this week had pointed out similarities between the Anymode case and Apple's iPad 2 Smart Cover.
ylee@yna.co.kr