Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd expects to sale 200 mobile phonesets in 2008

Despite world wide economic slow down, South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (SEO: 005930) is expecting to sale 200 million mobile phone sets this year. Compared to 2007, this is a 25% increase.

Youngcho Chi, Senior Vice President for Marketing, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said that his company had not been affected by the current economic climate. They were still seeing health growth rates in their sales. He believed that global economic situation presented them with the opportunity to increase their competitive edge to win their consumers’ support and attention. Reuters reports:

"We expect the overall mobile market size in 2008 to be about 1.2 billion units, a 9 per cent increase from 2007," Youngcho Chi, Senior Vice President of Samsung Electronics' Mobile Communications division, told Reuters in an email.

"Of these, we aim to achieve sales of 200 million units, a 25 per cent increase from the 161 million units sold in 2007," Chi said.

Samsung, which trails Finland's Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research) in the cellphone market, sold 46.3 million phones in the first quarter, equal to a record number sold in the fourth quarter.

Margins in the unit rose to a strong 16 percent from the fourth quarter's 11 percent.

According to Samsung forecasts, the mobile handset market would grow 4-5% in the second quarter against previous quarter in which the company sold about 46.3 mobile phones. Last year, Samsung observed a 42% growth in its phone set sales, which was four times higher than the industry growth rate. Still, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd is far behind Nokia (NYSE:NOK), the Finland mobile phone company in terms of global handset sales.

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