We want to be ready for big bang explosion in PC market: Sungwon Song, senior VP Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics may be big when it comes to TVs and smartphones, but it's playing catch-up in the PC segment. Sungwon Song, senior vice-president and global head of sales and marketing, notebook PC business, wants to change all that with a host of innovative new products, specifically geared for the Indian consumer. Excerpts from an interview to Hitesh Raj Bhagat:


Samsung has typically never been very bullish about PCs. Is something going to change?

We launched PC products in India in 2009. But now the market is growing fast and there's going to big bang-the market will just explode. We want to be ready for that. We're already global leaders in TVs and smartphones - but what's next?

That's why we want to focus on India-it's one of the most important markets for our future. I just took over as global head of sales for PC products, and I chose to come to India for my first international trip - that itself should indicate how important this market is for us.


What are the features that an Indian consumer most desires in a laptop?

Compared to other developed countries, Indian customers have some unique demands. We found they want better displays and higher picture quality. They also want better sound, louder than the output of built-in speakers, for entertainment purposes.

This could be because of the dynamic nature of the customer and because of the environment. We're already strong with our displays and we just launched JBL speakers in our products to cater to these demands. These speakers are clearer and have double the output power (4 watts RMS) as compared to a usual laptop.


Ultrabook is an Intel specification, but will Samsung's ultrabooks offer something different?

We are going to launch one of our newest ultrabook in the Indian market as early as next week. As you mentioned that ultrabooks have to meet Intel's specification, so most devices are similar - the question is how to differentiate?

We are going to do this by launching premium ultrabooks - they will also be named differently - Series 5 (launch slated next week) and second generation Series 9 (due around April this year). These products were just showcased in CES 2012.

As compared to competition, these will have brighter screens, faster boot time, better battery life, better designs, better materials and they will be the thinnest in their class.

What kinds of innovation can we expect?

We keep offering various accessories as promotion with our products. For example, we are offering a wireless mouse and headset free with our mid- to high-end offerings (second-generation Intel Core i series processors).

With all Samsung notebooks, we will offer MyNotePC hub - this is an application similar to the Music Hub on Samsung smartphones. That, we feel, is a differentiator that more customers will appreciate rather than offering items like an external DVD drive or USB hubs. One approach we're taking is to make our devices thinner.


What is Smarter Life strategy all about?

We are making TVs, smartphones and laptops. We already have our own applications that can enable effortless integration between these devices. This means a user will be able to share content wirelessly - without worrying about the mess of wires or how to configure connections.