Samsung swings to digital convergence

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

SYDNEY - Korean consumer electronics and semiconductor giant Samsung Electronics has unveiled a battery of 30 new products in a bid to lead the "digital convergence revolution."

Some of the products, such as the Motion Yepp portable MP3 and video player, blur the current distinctions between audio, TV, digital cameras and mobile phone product lines.

While admitting the company had historically followed its competitors in analogue markets, Australia sales director John McGuirk said Samsung would leverage its strengths in consumer electronics, telecommunications and semiconductors to take a leading role in digital products.

He said the company would focus on three core markets of personal, home and mobile multimedia products while maintaining its market-leading position in memory chips and CDMA (code division multiple access) mobile phone semiconductors.

Samsung's multimedia strategy hinges on widespread use of its SmartMedia memory cards which, like Sony's competing Memory Stick system, may be used to store information across different products.

Samsung has restored SmartMedia's position against another rival format, CompactFlash cards, by offering increased capacity. A 64Mb SmartMedia card has just started to appear and a 128Mb card will be launched next year.

The first digital convergence product will be the Yepp YP-E32 portable MP3 music player featuring 32Mb of built-in memory and a removable SmartMedia card.

It is expected to retail in New Zealand for $500 and should be available through Samsung's consumer electronics distributor, Porirua-based Radiola Corporation.

In the second and third quarters of this year, Samsung will release a range of brightly coloured digital cameras, a 17-inch LCD TV/computer monitor, and the Photo Yepp, an MP3 player that is also capable of displaying still images.

In the fourth quarter the I-Max, a combination of a smart phone and personal digital assistant, will be launched together with a DVD recorder and the Watchphone which, as its name suggests, is a mobile phone mounted on a wristwatch.

The Watchphone is still in the prototype stage and its launch may be delayed until the retail price of a production model can be lowered from the present estimate of $15,000 each.

While Mr McGuirk could not provide firm dates when - or even if - some of the more futuristic lines will appear in New Zealand, Samsung believes the digital products revenue will grow 15 per cent a year and will provide $US58 billion ($119.7 billion) worldwide by 2005.

Samsung, which employs 55,000 people in 50 countries, reported global sales revenue of $US22.8 billion in 1999.

* Michael Foreman travelled to Sydney as a guest of Samsung Electronics.