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Electronics Giants Samsung

It is no secret that electronics giants Samsung and LG are bitter rivals in the mobile phone market and it looks like this rivalry has spilled into the world of tablet devices.
Samsung are all set to release their first foray into the tablet market with the Galaxy Tab, which is expected to be available globally this month whilst LG announced back in July that their Android-powered tablet would be launched this quarter as well. This head to head is just in time for Christmas which should steal some of Apple iPad’s current market dominance.
However, all is not well with LG who are the world’s number 3 cell phone makers.
A company official has been reported as saying that LG may have to push back the release of its first tablet PC until next year so that it can use the Google’s latest version of the Android operating system called Gingerbread.
Google, which rolled out an updated Android version back in May this year, had been quoted as saying that its Gingerbread version of Android was “tentatively” scheduled to be released in the fourth quarter but the word on the web is that the launch may be postponed to next year.
So without an operating system ready to go LG will just have to wait before they launch. But is this the whole story?
LG are keen to portray any delay as due to external factors but internally is not as stable as they would like to be.
One school of thought is that postponing the LG tablet launch is down to its new Chief Executive, Koo Bon-joon, who took over this month whose main focus is on trying to streamline LG’s struggling business divisions.
“The delay also seems to have to do with the company’s trying to get a clear direction of its business,” said Chun Seong-hoon, an analyst at Hana Daetoo Securities Co. “It recently integrated its PC division to the mobile phone business, and Koo is probably reorganizing the businesses.”
In the second quarter this year LG’s mobile phone division reported record losses prompting the overhaul in the senior management and these losses are widely thought to be due to the company’s slow response to the boom in demand for smartphones.
So surely a delay in releasing a tablet device will mean that they miss the boat again.
Samsung will no doubt be rubbing their hands in glee as they get one up on their rivals with the Galaxy Tab which has already had positive reviews and is being dubbed by some as a genuine contender to the iPad. However, Samsung will still have other tablet PCs to compete against as both BlackBerry and Dell have tablet devices hitting the market.
With so many new entries expected it is no wonder that analysts believe that the global market will leap from 11 million units this year to around 28 million next year.


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