Samsung expects to up 06 handset sales f'cast

Singapore, June 21 : Samsung Electronics, the world's No. 3 cellphone maker, said it expects to raise its 2006 forecast for handset sales by 10 percent to 126 million units, banking on robust demand for its new line of slim phones.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., South Korea's most valuable company, launched three new ultra-slim handsets on Wednesday to tap the runaway success of rival Motorola Inc.'s thin clamshell RAZR.

Samsung had earlier estimated total sales of 115 million handsets in 2006.

''We are very optimistic because of the initial good response from potential customers for our new slim phones. Expectations are growing day by day,'' Ike Chung, senior vice president for overseas sales and marketing, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

When asked by how much Samsung could raise its 2006 forecast, compared with its earlier estimate, Chung said: ''It could be 10 percent more.'' ''We are also expecting better margins from the third quarter once the new phones start shipping,'' he added.

Brian Park, vice president of overseas sales and marketing for Samsung's handset business, said second-quarter handset demand was holding up well.

''Usually, first-quarter demand is less than the fourth quarter of last year, but second quarter should be at least the same or slightly more than the first quarter,'' he told Reuters.

''That was the trend that we saw in the current quarter,'' he added, but declined to give shipment numbers for the period.

Analysts said that Samsung's global market share could have slipped in the April-June quarter, and have forecast shipments of 27-28 million units, down from the company's record sales of 29 million phones in the January-March quarter.

UPPING THE ANTE

In the January-March quarter, Samsung garnered a global market share of 12.7 percent, while industry leader Nokia had 32.8 percent, according to data from research outfit Strategy Analytics.

Second-ranked Motorola had a 20.1 percent share, LG Electronics Inc. held 6.8 percent and Sony Ericsson achieved 5.8 percent.

Samsung, also the world's top maker of memory chips and liquid crystal displays, attempted to beat U.S. rival Motorola in its own game of slim phones several times last year.

Last May, Samsung upped the ante with the launch of its first RAZR rival -- the clamshell V740. This was followed up at the end of the year with five thin models for the European market.

This round, Samsung has launched phones that have beat the 14-millimetre-thick RAZR, with its thinnest model -- the X820 -- measuring just 6.9 millimetres in width.

The X820, dubbed ''The New Bar Code'', is a candy bar-shaped phone made with fibreglass-infused plastic. It sports a 2-megapixel camera and weighs just 66 grams.

The clamshell D830, with a magnesium body, measures 9.9 milimetres thick, offers a 2-megapixel camera and weighs 85 grams.

The third phone -- the D900 -- is a slider phone with a 3.13-megapixel camera. It weighs 85 grams and is 12.9 milimetres thick.

All three handsets will hit store shelves in July and August.

REUTERS