Samsung Expects To Sell Over 100 Million Handsets

SEOUL -(Dow Jones)- Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE) expects mobile handset shipments to rise about 16% in 2005 to reach more than 100 million units, Ki Tae Lee, president of Samsung's telecommunications business, said.

The world's second-largest maker of mobile handsets by volume behind Nokia Corp. (NOK) of Finland, expects to sell more than 86 million units globally this year.

A Samsung spokeswoman confirmed Lee's comments Thursday.

Samsung aims to maintain its operating profit handset margin between 16% and 17% next year and it won't aggressively boost the number of handset shipments to become a market share leader, Lee said.

In October, Young-Man Ji, vice president of Samsung's telecommunications network business said the global mobile handset market is expected to grow at a much slower pace of 7% to 8% next year to 650 million units.

According to research firm Gartner Inc., Samsung held 13.8% of the global handset market in the third quarter - up from 11.2% a year earlier - to take the No. 2 spot from Motorola Inc. (MOT) of the U.S. Nokia held on to the No. 1 spot with 30.9%.

Samsung has said it will aggressively move into the third-generation, or 3G, market next year, by providing wide-band code division multiple access, or WCDMA, handsets to 15 global carriers.

At 0018 GMT, shares of Samsung were up 1.8% at KRW436,000, outperforming the broader index's 0.3% rise.

-By Yun-Hee Kim, Dow Jones Newswires; 822-732-2165; yun-hee.kim@dowjones.com

-Edited by Sharon Vong

(END) Dow Jones Newswires"

Posted to the site on 16th December 2004