Korea-based Samsung Electronics reportedly is considering entering the Taiwan market with its netbooks, according to industry sources. Samsung Taiwan confirmed that the company is considering entering the Taiwan netbook market, but the company currently does not yet have any official plans to do so.
The sources believe that Samsung's brand name should not have problem drawing Taiwan consumers, as the company already does well in the market with its handsets, LCD TVs and printers. However, Samsung may find it difficult to gain a share in the netbook market since Acer and Asustek together already have a 60% share of Taiwan netbook sales and the company will also need to compete against vendors such as Micro-Star International (MSI), Hewlett-Packard (HP), Toshiba as well as Taiwan-based second-tier vendors.
Samsung shipped five million notebooks in 2009 and aims to ship 10 million units in 2010 with 70% of them being netbooks.