Samsung partners with telecoms to deepen internet penetration

Samsung will this week unveil its latest flagship Galaxy Smartphone, the S4, on the local market.The South Korean giant seeks to cement its lead over faltering US-based rival Apple in an increasingly saturated and competitive market. The Galaxy S4, armed with eye motion control technology that can pause a video when the user looks away, comes with a faster chip, is thinner and lighter than the S3 model.Speaking to the Business Times in an exclusive interview in Johannesburg, South Africa during the Africa leg of the Samsung Galaxy S4 World Tour 2013 on Thursday, the firm’s chief operating officer for East Africa, Robert Ngeru, said they had held successful talks with regional telecom operators to provide data bundles for customers buying the Galaxy S4 as part of a joint effort to promote mobile Internet penetration.“Our market research recently confirmed that marketing such powerful smart mobile devices and failing to provide data bundles was like selling a new car without fuel or tyres,” he said.Smartphone makers have been battling for the top slot in the Rwandan market and the Galaxy S4 will have to contend with competition from Apple’s iPhone 5 and HTC’s HTC One.After years of following and refining the iPhone’s pioneering innovations, a strategy that resulted in bitter patent battles with Apple, Samsung has dethroned its California-based rival to become the world’s top Smartphone maker. According to sales results released last week, the firm made over $6.4b profits in the first quarter of this year.This performance is exerting pressure on Samsung to shed its copycat label and come up with its own game-changing innovations. The tech-giant employs 236,000 people across 79 countries with annual sales of $187.8b (over Rwf118 trillion).The Galaxy S4 will be marketed under the tagline Your Life Companion.Among the other prominent features the ‘life companion’ boasts include a translator, nine sensors, long-term evolution and a 13 megapixel camera.Arthur Goldstuck, a prominent ICT critic, hailed the gadget. “I do not see any smartphone in the market challenging the Galaxy S4 as the mobile phone of 2013, beating its predecessor, the S3 to the title,” he said.