11 million Samsung laptop until 2011

An extra 11 million units must be sold worldwide by the year 2011 in order to reach 5.7 per cent market share — a massive ask, considering Samsung's worldwide market share has only grown from 1.2 per cent in 2005 to 1.7 per cent in 2007.

 Samsung will cease operation of its
laptop division if it doesn't improve its market share by 2011.
That's according to one of the company's senior managers, Sukyong
Hong.

To stay afloat, Samsung says it will
have to — at least — overtake Sony, which currently lays claim to 6
per cent of the laptop market. The rest of its primary competitors
seem out of reach. Toshiba has 10 per cent, Dell is on 14 per cent,
Acer has 16 per cent and HP tops the charts on 23 per cent.

One of the most obvious ways of
increasing market share is to venture into the mini PC market along
with the likes of Asus, HP and MSI, but Samsung seems reluctant to do
so. The company fears that making a low-cost laptop will jeopardise
sales of its existing machines. One alternative is to enter the US
market. Currently the only Samsung laptop being sold in America is
the Q1 UMPC, which isn't a consumer favourite due to its high price
and questionable usability.

The irony of this story is that Samsung
provides many of the components used inside Sony laptops, including
the LCD panels.

At an industry display conference ,
Samsung unveils a prototype laptop with a 12.1-inch active-matrix
OLED (AMOLED) display. The company said the commercial versions will
be avaible next year in the USA.