Samsung debuts bada mobile handset platform

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 09 December 2009 06:45

Business IT - Technology

Samsung appears to be positioning bada devices into the 'feature phone' rather than the more upmarket smartphone market. Dr Hosoo Lee, executive vice president and head of the Media Solution Centre at Samsung Electronics, said: "The aim of the bada platform is to make smartphone features accessible to everyone, so that developers can reach larger audiences and the variety and creativity of apps can be enjoyed by many."

Samsung has also released the results of a survey into consumers' mobile software demands, to vindicate its approach with bada. It said: "The survey results were found to be extremely encouraging for those developers currently creating apps for the mobile market, as this was identified as the greatest opportunity for new development...Our findings show the vast potential of the applications market and the huge untapped revenues, driven by high levels of consumer demand."

"Almost half (42 percent) of current feature phone users surveyed would pay to download applications if they could – and 54 percent of those people would be prepared to pay up to €5 [$A8] for each application they download, illustrating the scale of the potential revenues available for developers by extending application-downloadable smartphone markets."

The survey was based on interviews with 500 users, in UK, France and Italy - three of Europe's biggest mobile markets where Samsung currently offers apps through its Samsung Application Store.

Samsung said "the study shows that among users of mainstream handsets who have not downloaded an application before, travel and navigation applications were most in demand with 34 percent of people surveyed eager to use them, followed by photography (12 percent), work (11 percent) and shopping (9 percent).