It comprises numerous subsidiaries and affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, and is the largest South Korean chaebol.
This week, it is releasing a new flagship full size tablet, the Galaxy Note 10.1, designed around two key features the iPad lacksa stylus and several apps that allow you to use it for note taking and sketching, and the ability to view two apps at once in a split screen view.
During the trial, now in its third week, Apple has presented testimony that Samsung infringed on a number of
Apple patents in the development of many of its smartphones and tablet computers, thus illegally
copying the design of Apples iPhone and iPad products.
That said, the price – $499 for 16 gigabytes of memory and WiFi only, the same as the iPad – and competition from increasingly smart phones, have left analysts doubting the new device will see off the iPad.
“When you look at the price and overall consumer awareness about Samsung tablets, it’s not likely to be a big success,” said Park Young, an analyst at Woori Investment & Securities in Seoul.
Under cross examination by Apple attorney Harold McElhinny, Kim was
asked whether he knew that Google, whose Android mobile operating system runs
inside Samsung devices, asked Samsung to change the designs of its smartphones
and tablets because they too closely resembled those of the iPhone and iPad.
Samsung has been keen to differentiate the Note 10.1 from rival tablets, which are primarily used to consume media – highlighting the device’s ability to personalize and create.
Even though they’ve been the best known competitors to Apple’s dominant iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets have lagged far behind the leader in popularity.
At Wednesday’s launch event in New York, “Moulin Rouge” movie director Baz Luhrmann and fashion designer Zac Posen were on hand to demonstrate how they use the S Pen stylus in their work.
SPLIT SCREENThe Galaxy 10.1 is named after its screen size, which is slightly larger than the 9.7 inch iPad, and has impressed with a split screen feature that allows users to have two apps active side by side.
Kim testified that he and other engineers began developing the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet
computer in October 2009, before the Apple iPad was introduced in 2010.
For instance, according to documents Samsung had to release at a patent trial last week, three leading Galaxy Tab models, combined, had sold just 1.4 million units in the US from the fourth quarter of 2010 through the middle of 2012.
Apple sold 28.8 million iPads in January June, giving it 64.4 percent of the market, well ahead of Samsung’s 9.9 percent market share, according to research firm IHS iSuppli.
Apple documents said it sold 29.7 million iPads in the US during the same period.
The Note 10.1 uses Google’s Android software and a quad core processor with 1.4 GHz clock speed.
It boasts a 5 megapixel rear camera and 1.9 megapixel front facing camera, which also detects the user’s eye movements to prevent the device from going into standby mode.
The federal judge presiding over the patent infringement trial of Apple against Samsung
over the design of smartphones and tablet computers suggested in court on Aug.
In Seoul on Thursday, Samsung shares were flat at 1.345 million won ($1,200) in a market down 0.1 percent.
($1 = 1129.6500 Korean won)(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in NEW YORK; Editing by Ken Wills and Ian Geoghegan).
Stefanie O'Neill is a business journalist based in Hong Kong, China. Stefanie has a passion for financial markets and breaking news stories and loves writing about business news, stock market, and economic opinions that matters most to its audience. Stefanie spends a lot of time discovering and researching latest financial markets and industry news stories in order to make sure the latest and greatest stories are brought to you first on BigBoardNews.com.
