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Samsung Electronics, in line with a general strategy, has for the longest time focused on the high-end laptop market, but under pressure from market developments it is starting to move into cheap notebooks after all. The market has grown fast since the beginning of this year, with experts saying Samsung decided to keep up to protect its market share. Major competitors Apple, Sony, and Dell are introducing their own low-end models and heating up competition in laptops priced under W1 million (US $1,000).
Staring from this week, Samsung is selling laptops at a factory price of W999,000, a staffer said Thursday -- the first time the company has deigned to go below W1 million. Competitors have eroded much of its laptop market share with low-priced but improved laptops. The domestic notebook market has posted more than 20 percent growth a year, but Samsung¡¯s share has slid from 50 percent in its heyday to 30 percent this year.
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Models show off new Hewlett-Packard products including laptops during a promotion event in Seoul in April.
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The sole factor separating high-end and low-end in the laptop market is the CPU. Low-priced laptops usually have affordable CPUs, which are a little inferior in terms of performance. But experts say every other part is much the same.
Global laptop makers that have also so far focused on expensive products already introduced low-priced products this year. Apple¡¯s iBooks have had a price tag over W2 million, but the new MacBook, with a sizeable 13.3 inch screen, goes for W1.19 million in Korea. Sony has priced laptops at least 10 percent higher than competitors here and overseas, recently released products for W1.09 million. LG Electronics, the no. 2 in the domestic PC market, sells four low-priced models in the range of W900,000, and Dell, the world¡¯s no. 1, has a model for no more than W800,000.
Taiwan¡¯s Acer, meanwhile, has long slashed prices to the W500,000 level. Industry experts say that trend will eventually push even desktop PCs out of the market.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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