Samsung USA Wireless Unit President Sees 7%-10% Indus Growth

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. wireless industry should grow 7% to 10% next year, according to the head of Samsung Electronics's North American wireless unit.

That compares with 7% to 8% growth for this year, said Dale Sohn, president of Samsung Telecommunications America. It's one of the reasons why Samsung is expanding its product lineup to 60 devices in 2007.

"I don't see growth slowing in the U.S. market," he told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday during the Samsung Mobile Summit in New York.

The U.S. market is a brutal battleground for the handset makers. While it offers a huge number of potential new customers, it also has a number of wireless service providers with a laundry list of demands. Sohn said Samsung has taken the No. 2 position in the U.S. market behind Motorola. The world's largest handset maker, Nokia, was third.

Samsung hopes its strategy of selling a wide variety of products will pay off in winning over the diverse U.S. customer base. One of the key capabilities is music. Sohn said he looks forward to Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL) launch of its iPhones because it gives Samsung the chance to tout its own lineup of music phones.

Samsung is also expanding its product portfolio to networking equipment for technology like WiMax, or wireless Internet with expanded range. "We are increasingly a supplier of the wireless ecosystem," Sohn said.

The company also backed its intent to support the carriers and its reseller partners. That strategy burned them with its visible support of ESPN Mobile, which sold ESPN-branded wireless service through Sprint Nextel Corp.'s (S) network. ESPN Mobile failed to win an audience and eventually shut down.

This year the business model for mobile virtual network operators, or wireless resellers, failed, Sohn said. Still, more are expected to launch and Samsung will continue to support them, he said.

On Research in Motion's lawsuit against Samsung over the name of its new smartphone, Sohn said he was surprised by the move. RIM claims Samsung's Blackjack is too similar to RIM's Blackberry. Sohn said the Blackberry never came up when developing the Blackjack name. He wouldn't comment further on the litigation.

-By Roger Cheng, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2020; roger.cheng@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires "

Posted to the site on 14th December 2006