Press Release
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global leader in the consumer electronics industry, today announced the signing of a sponsorship agreement with the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the representative body for international football in Africa, for the Orange Africa Cup of Nations, ANGOLA 2010 to be held in Angola from January 10 to 31, 2010.

Samsung’s sponsorship of the Orange Africa Cup of Nations is part of a four-year agreement with the CAF that will conclude in 2012. Founded in 1957, the Africa Cup of Nations is held every two years as the main international football competition on the continent and enjoys a tremendous following given the increasing success and popularity of football in Africa.

Samsung Electronics has stunned the industry with its 3rd quarter sales results which show a 206% increase from a year ago. These are Samsung’s best ever quarterly earnings.

The mobile phone division brought in some of the strongest results, and are proof that outstanding products, a motivated sales force and excellent marketing are a recipe for great success – even in an economic downturn.

Samsung shipped 60.2 million handsets during the 3rd quarter – 15% up from the 2nd quarter, and 16% up from the previous year despite the hugely challenging market conditions that saw competitors wilting like daisies in the midday sun. Big performers in Samsung’s diversified product lineup include the recently released Jet.

A Finnish security firm has created a seurity program in reaction to the growing number of viruses that infect handsets. Outbreaks of these viruses that hop from phone to phone were first recorded at large outdoor concerts in Helsinki. Many security experts believe that phone bugs will eventually become as big a nuisance as computer viruses. Mobile phone viruses can spread via the Bluetooth short range radio system found on smartphones. Most of the mobile phone viruses target handsets that use smartphone operating systems however infection can be avoided by turning off Bluetooth on smart phones.

The definition of a mobile widget is as follows: a small application, a piece of code, that ha one function and does it well. The second thing to note about widgets is that they can be combined together. The last one being that it’s fairly easy to develop a new widget when compared to developing a full application.

The growing pervasiveness of mobile widgets is easily understood. While widgets are a convenience in the online world, they are near essential in the mobile world. This is because mobile devices are small and the interface is often challenging. One of the biggest challenges of widget development is writing multiple sets of computer code so that a widget will be compatible with multiple operating systems and types of devices.

Although South Africa leads the way in many areas, when it comes to mobile phone trends we often follow where the global market leads. So when a brand or type of handset does well overseas we can predict a similar pattern here in South Africa within 6 months to a year.

According to research by industry-watcher Gartner Inc, 286.1 million mobile phones were sold worldwide in the second quarter of 2009. That’s 6.1% down on one year ago. There was, however, a big growth area in smartphone sales, which topped 40 million units, 27% up from the same period last year.

It’s great to be associated with a brand that puts its money where its mouth is. While most companies talk a good environmental message, Samsung is walking the path of environmental responsibility and leading the way where others will hopefully follow.

The latest confirmation of this comes with Samsung's offer of free recycling for all Samsung-branded consumer electronics in all 50 US states, starting from 1 October 2009. The programme, called Recycling Direct, is world-first allowing customers to return devices like televisions, monitors, DVD players, and mobile handsets for responsible recycling. Mobile phones can be returned free via the post for environmentally friendly recycling.

Break out the lentils and granola bars people: Samsung has just launched the most eco-friendly handset ever.

The Samsung Reclaim is a full-function Qwerty slider manufactured from 80% recycled materials, including a corn-based plastic bio-material shell. Appropriately the Reclaim comes in any colour you want – provided it’s green. Other features include 3G, 2 mega pixel camera and Bluetooth. Plus it’s even got built-in ring tones of crickets, streams, and chirping birds. Seriously!

Although the Reclaim is currently only available in the United States, this hippie-friendly tree-hugger of a handset is sure to head our way soon.

But wait, as they say on Verimark adds, there’s more:

Probably the most useful thing to know about the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) is that it is an international standard. If you travel in Europe and many other parts of the world, GSM is the only type of cellular service available. Originally, the acronym GSM stood for Groupe Spécial Mobile, a group formed by the Conference of European Posts and Telegraphs (CEPT) in 1982 to research the merits of a European standard for mobile telecommunications. Commercial service using the GSM system did not actually start until 1991. Instead of using analog service, GSM was developed as a digital system using TDMA technology.

Amongst its many features, the Samsung Jet has a superb 3.1" WVGA AMOLED screen - four times sharper than a WQVGA screen! Not sure what AMOLED displays are all about? Here's a quick breakdown:

AMOLED is the acronym for active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, an emerging display technology for use in mobile devices like mobile phones. OLED describes a specific type of ultra thin, ultra bright display technology which doesn't require a backlight and AMOLED refers to the technology behind the addressing of pixels.