Samsung Hit the Bull’s Eye with Budget Touchscreen Handset S5230

SEOUL, South Korea - Samsung's handset division has been keeping the media busy with product launches in every conceivable market segment over the last few months. Meanwhile, their sales record over the last few months have been impressive as well. With the present economic gloom, the company's high-end offerings haven't fared well in the market, but their budget touchscreen model, the S5230, has been a hit with the masses: a Chinese daily, Commercial Times, has reported that the sales of Samsung S5230 has recently crossed the one million units-a-month figure.

With a price tag of around US$229-249, the S5230 an affordable entry-level touchscreen phone in market, and with some impressive features such as the audio enhancing DNSe under its hood, the S5230 is making big waves in the entry-level music branded touchscreen segment.

Launched in April '09, competing against the likes of LG Cookie, the Samsung S5230 has been successful in the mass markets with its perfect blend of aesthetics, specifications, and spot-on pricing.

The S5230 sports Samsung's proprietary TouchWiz interface, which Samsung has been actively using in its several smartphones of the Omnia line-up and even on the latest Samsung Jet. Other goodies packed in S5230 include Gesture Lock, Photo Contact Manager and camera Smile Shot, the latter which gave it a clear advantage over the LG Cookie, its nearest competitor, price and specification-wise. However, the LG Cookie packs in a document reader, for the business consumer on budget.

With hardware specifications including triband GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz), a 3" resistive touchscreen TFT display, an accelerometer, 3.2 megapixel camera with Smile Shot, Bluetooth v2.1, microUSB v2.0, and microSD memory card slot for memory expansion up to 16 GB; the price tag of US$229-249 offers great value for one's money.

Having already crossed the one million units-per-month milestone, Samsung has now set its eye on shipping over 10 million units of the S5230 by year-end, according to the manufacturer's Taiwanese division. While Samsung's pricing for S5230 has been cut-throat, competitors such as LG have responded with a further reduction in their price, with the present pricing of LG Cookie in the range of US$ 159-179. Whether Samsung will be able to achieve their target of 10 million units by year-end will largely depend on how Samsung and its competitors price their offerings in this segment.