Samsung to Launch Tizen Smartphone in Third Quarter

The new Samsung Z smartphone runs on Samsung's homegrown Tizen operating system. Samsung Electronics

 

 

SEOUL— Samsung Electronics Co. said Monday it would start selling a smartphone running on a homegrown operating system called Tizen in the third quarter, marking a major step forward in the South Korean technology giant's attempts to lessen its reliance on Google Inc. Samsung Electronics Co said Monday it would start selling a smartphone running on a homegrown operating system called Tizen in the third qu.  Android operating system.

Samsung said the smartphone, to be called the Samsung Z, will go on sale in Russia in the third quarter, with plans to expand into other markets. The company will also launch a Tizen store to sell software and services for the devices.
The push into Tizen, an untested operating system, comes as Samsung seeks to beef up its presence in software and services. While Samsung dominates the global-smartphone market, its partner, Google, controls the user experience, and the software revenue, on the devices.
The smartphone launch comes just months after Samsung introduced a smartwatch called the Gear 2 running on Tizen rather than the Android operating system that powers the vast majority of Samsung mobile devices. The announcement comes as Tizen's backers, including Samsung and Intel Corp , are holding a developers conference in San Francisco this week.
Samsung has already launched several cameras running on Tizen, and has plans to introduce other Tizen-based consumer products, such as television sets, refrigerators and car dashboards.
But the most anticipated device has been the smartphone, after a string of setbacks in Samsung's attempts to start selling a Tizen-based mobile phone. Earlier this year, Samsung was just days away from introducing a Tizen smartphone in Japan and France, but had to scrap those plans after some carrier partners balked, citing weak demand.
With a launch in Russia, where a relatively high proportion of smartphones are sold through channels other than carriers, Samsung could be seeking to avoid the potential hurdles of coordinating a launch with local carriers. Samsung didn't mention any carrier partners in its written statement on Monday.
The decision to target Russia also reflects the importance that Samsung and its Tizen partners have attached to emerging markets, where Google and rival Apple Inc. have less of a foothold. Growth opportunities there are also greater, given the relatively low adoption of smartphones.

Samsung is also expected to launch a Tizen device in India, a person familiar with the matter said, though the timing on that announcement isn't firm.
The Tizen smartphone is also expected to sell at a lower price than its iPhone and Android counterparts, people familiar with the matter said. Samsung didn't disclose any pricing plans in its statement.
But like Samsung's flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S5, the Samsung Z will feature a built-in fingerprint sensor and an "Ultra Power Saving Mode," which allows the phone to stay operational, even when the battery life is very low.
Prototypes of the Tizen smartphone, which have been on display at previous Tizen developers conferences, suggest that the user interface won't depart much from Android's basic look and feel.
Official images accompanying Samsung's statement on Monday showed a screen that is virtually indistinguishable from Android's home screen, except that the app buttons are round rather than square. The home screen also features an Internet search bar, though in images provided by the company, the Google logo is replaced with a logo for Yandex, the Russian search giant.
At the Tizen developers conference, which is taking place within a 15-minute stroll of Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in downtown San Francisco, Samsung will also unveil software-development tools for TV sets running on Tizen.
In May, The Wall Street Journal first reported on Samsung's plans to launch a Tizen smartphone in Russia around the time of the developers conference.

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