Samsung’s laptop division is set to cease all operations if market share doesn’t improve by 2011, according to one of the company’s senior managers.
They are looking to reach 5.7 percent market share which means an additional 11 million units must be sold worldwide by 2011. This would seem impossible when you look at the figures – market share worldwide for Samsung has only grown from 1.2 percent in 2005 to 1.7 percent in 2007.
Sony is Samsung’s nearest competitor with 6 percent market share and is the one they must overtake in order to stay afloat. Other competitors are well ahead with Toshiba at 10 percent, Dell at 14 percent, Acer at 16 percent and Hewlett-Packard at 23 percent.
There is some amusing irony to this story. Even if Samsung does cease their laptop operations, they’ll still be in the business, supplying Sony with many of the components in their laptops including the LCD panels.