Speaking
to Khaleej Times, Han said the high oil prices have substantially
increased consumer spending in the UAE, positively impacting mobile
phone sales in the country.
Based
in Dubai, Han expects more growth during the coming period due to the
upcoming Dubai Shopping Festival, an event that is enjoying increasing
international fame year after another, on the one hand, and the
launching of new higher-end models in December on the other.
He
explained that Dubai is one of the most important centres for Samsung,
as it represents a gateway for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
region.
"Although
Samsung does not have any manufacturing or assembly facilities in
Dubai, yet the importance of this thriving emirate is due to the fact
that it is the best window for us to the MENA region," he observed.
"The
domestic market of Dubai cannot be measured according to the
population, the emirate hosts even more visitors than this figure,
mostly shoppers," he maintained.
"Some
people say that the UAE is planning to reach with the population figure
to 10 million by 2010, another fact that supports our optimism for the
domestic market's future prospects." Han added.
With
a share of 17 per cent, Samsung is at present the second market leader
in the UAE following Nokia (almost 50 per cent), followed by Sony
Erricson (13 per cent).
Brian
Park, Samsung's Vice-President for Middle East, Asia and Africa sales
and marketing, said, "We are planning to solidify our position, and
although our sales figures show a huge gap between us and Nokia, yet
statistics can be very much deceiving, whereas we do not compete with
our products at the lower end of the market, we only target the higher
end, as it is more challenging for us to test our advanced
technologies, and cater for the more sophisticated consumer."
He
added that "because of other producers' strategy to cater for the lower
end of the market statistics can obviously show that they achieve a
bigger figure than us in the sales.
Christian
Collins, a senior manager for overseas marketing strategy agreed to
that explaining that "prices of Samsung's mobile products are indeed in
a higher bracket than most producers, but that average only conveys our
focus which is to target the upper market segment."
Sung
Woo Han admitted that his company is constantly developing new models,
the latest of which is the i-300 mp3 mobile phone, which is the first
to acquire a storage capacity of 3GB, expected to be launched in Dubai
this month.
He
concluded by saying that "although competitors announced that they are
developing a 4 GB model, yet we are the first ever to launch a 3 GB,
and surely more capacity is to come in the future."
