Samsung, Apple Rivalry Expanding Beyond Smartphones

Samsung Electronics will officially unveil its Galaxy Tab tablet PC here on Thursday, the same day Apple's new MacBook Air laptop is slated to hit the Korean market. This won't be the first clash of Samsung and Apple product releases. On June 8 Samsung along with Google and SK Telecom unveiled the Galaxy S in Korea while the iPhone 4 was making its worldwide debut. When the iPhone launched here on Sept. 10, Samsung released the Galaxy S Pink, a model targeting women.

"By releasing the Galaxy Tab on Thursday, Samsung can distract attention from the newly-launched MacBook Air as well as get a head start in the tablet PC market before the iPad arrives," Kim Young-joon, an analyst with LIG Investment and Securities said. "The competition between Samsung and Apple that started with the Galaxy S and iPhone is widening to cover the whole IT sector."

◆ Apple Rides 'iPhone Effect'

Industry watchers see Samsung's move as an effort to prevent Apple from eating more of its share of the domestic PC market. According to market researcher IDC, Apple grabbed a 1.1 percent share of the PC market here last year, far less than Samsung's 37.5 percent. But the industry forecasts that the so-called "iPhone effect" may kindle interest in Apple PCs.

Thanks in part to the massive popularity of the iPhone, Apple’s global PC sales shot up 27 percent last year from 2008. This trend has also been seen here since the iPhone's debut in November last year. Apple sold a mere 3,900 PCs here in the first quarter of last year but the figure increased 3.5-fold to 13,228 in the second quarter of this year, lifting Apple's share of the Korean PC market to over 2 percent this year. Sales of more than 1.3 million iPhones over the past year have apparently sparked consumers' interest in other Apple products, an Apple staffer said.

Apple hopes that the MacBook Air will maximize the iPhone effect as the new gadget is a sort of combination of the iPhone and iPad. The wedge-shaped laptop measures just 3 mm high in the front to 17 mm in the back and weighs only 1.04 kg. It also features functions available on the iPhone including the multi-touch display and FaceTime video calling.

◆ Samsung vs. Apple Competition Spreads

The battle between Samsung and Apple has spread to other categories. Apple advanced into a market that is currently dominated by Samsung with the release of the Apple TV set-top box in September, while Samsung launched a new thinner and lighter laptop on Oct. 14. Also, Samsung will unveil the Galaxy Player 50 at the end of this year to take on Apple in the portable media player market.