Samsung pumps dollars 2m into Philippines

MANILA: Korea's largest electronics conglomerate Samsung will be spending USdollars 2 million in a drive to gain a larger share of the Philippines mobile phone handset market, currently dominated by Nokia and Siemens. The decision follows the appointment of local agency Caballero & Associates to handle below-the-line marketing, and the unveiling of its new MP3-playing models, the SGH-M100 and N-100. FCB manages Samsung mobile phones' worldwide account, but in the Philippines, marketing director Angeline Limbaco said the plan is to concentrate FCB services on corporate branding. Limbaco said: "FCB will continue with the corporate campaigns but we would rather use smaller agencies for other advertising operations. They work faster." Besides Caballero, the company is believed to be in talks with another agency. With its USdollars 2 million marketing budget, Samsung is looking to push its brand to the top three. The Korean conglomerate has barely one per cent of the market, while Nokia has 70 per cent. The remaining share is divided among Siemens, Ericsson, Motorola and Panasonic. Samsung Electronics marketing vice-president, Maeng Dal Bae, said the company will introduce five mobile phone models this year in its drive to build market share. Maeng is confident the two models will help the company grab as much as 10 per cent of the local market. There are seven million mobile phone subscribers in the country, making it one of the biggest mobile phone markets in Southeast Asia. In the global market, Samsung is third biggest vendor behind Nokia and Siemens. For handsets equipped with CDMA technology, it claims to lead with 26 per cent of the global share.

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