JEDDAH, 13 December 2007 — I have never owned a cell phone made by Samsung Electronics, but I know plenty of people who have been happy owners for many years.

In a region where Nokia, the Finnish manufacturer, has dominated the mobile phone market, the Middle East market (and Saudi Arabia in particular) has been especially hard for Samsung to crack. Overall Samsung has a healthy 18-percent share of the Middle East market, according to Kwangbae Roh, vice president of Samsung’s Mobile Communication Division. But it is the Saudi market, the largest in the Arab Gulf region, which is worrying the South Korean electronics giant.

“We only have an eight-percent market share in Saudi Arabia right now,” he admitted recently to a group of visiting Middle East journalists. But he is hopeful. “We didn’t have a very good partner there in the past, but now we have a very good one in Axiom, who is our distributor for Samsung mobiles.”

“We are aiming to sell 1.5 million units of phones in Saudi Arabia by next year,” said Roh, who revealed that Samsung has the ambitious target of doubling its Middle East and Africa sales from 7.4 million units last year to 14 million this year, and a huge 28 million units in 2008.

To help its market penetration, Samsung is going to Arabize its phone software and does regular field tests and focus group sampling in Dubai, Cairo and Saudi Arabia. “We are considering localizing more applications for our phones. Local content is very important. We will start sometime next year,” said Roh.

Samsung claims that as of last quarter’s sales results it is now the second largest mobile phone seller in the world, with Nokia in first and Motorola in third.

The Korean company has always placed an emphasis on slim phones, with its Ultra line of phones the sleekest, slimmest and most successful in its line-up. But the company has also realized that its mobile phone users are a diverse group ranging from busy businesspeople to fashion-conscious teenagers and users in developing countries who can only afford simple sets.

To meet these needs, Samsung has developed the Blackjack phone for business users, which comes only in black and can download e-mails; candy-colored, glossy phones with built-in music players for the young, and simple, camera-less phones for those with less purchasing power.

“We still think that the slim design is important, but we are rethinking the sleekness of our phones,” admitted Eliot Seungmin Park, manager of design strategy in Samsung’s Mobile Communication Division.

Indeed, a trip to Samsung’s flagship Anycall Studio lifestyle shop in Seoul reveals several phones with 5-megapixel cameras that are as thick as a pack of cigarettes. None of that much vaunted sleekness and thinness of the Ultra line to be seen there!

Samsung Electronics is also trying to establish itself in the field of printers and in order to entice high-end home users has decided to go with a line of glossy, black, highly-designed printers that are beautiful to look at. “Printing is our next strategic growth center,” said Nelson Allen, senior manager for digital media marketing, noting that 24 percent of Samsung’s $85.3 billion in 2006 sales were in digital media.

Instead of going for the mass market of home printers which is completely dominated by HP, Samsung decided to take a different approach and appeal to a higher aesthetic. “Printers were traditionally hard to use and not very good looking. They used to just take up space in the office or home,” said Jun Won Bae, a senior designer in Samsung’s digital printing Division. “We thought there should be a design revolution in printers that would give the user a new experience.”

With an in-house army of 600 designers and a number of good design awards from the US, Germany and Japan, Samsung has not found it difficult to turn the usually ugly, beige and strictly utilitarian piece of equipment into a beautiful object that anyone would be proud to have at work or home. “We focused on four pillars to emotionalize the experience of the user,” explained Bae. “Look, touch, silence and eco-friendliness were our major concerns in designing this printer. A slim and sleek minimal concept was applied, using a glossy black surface for a premium look.” Bae also said that the company focused on making the new SCX-4500 printer much quieter than most printers, and eco-friendly by eliminating the need to spray-paint the surface of the printer since it already had a glossy finish.

All of this attention to detail, design, ease of use and sleekness caught the eye of Apple Computer, who are now the sole distributors of the printer in the US through its network of 160 shops.

But like everyone else, Samsung is really focusing its attention on the gigantic Chinese market, where it already operates several factories producing mobile phones and other electronic items. It faces stiff competition from Nokia there as well as from local Chinese companies that also manufacture mobile phones.

Already, Samsung claims it is the world’s No. 1 manufacturer and seller of televisions, with $23 billion in TV sales alone last year according to Allen.

With 13 research and design centers in nine countries, and a further seven design centers in six countries, Samsung Electronics is poised to become even bigger and more successful than its founder could have ever imagined when he started the company in 1969 producing black and white television sets using Japanese technology provided by Sanyo.