JOIN USAdding up to the competition in smartphone segment, Samsung Electronics on Friday launched its Galaxy S4 for Rs 41,500.
Unveiling the phone here, Samsung South West Asia President and CEO B D Park stressed Samsung's endeavour to bring out innovative products for India. "Galaxy S4 marks our effort to bring out a device as life’s companion to cater to its ever growing day to day demands," Park said.
Launched simultaneously in 11 other countries on Friday after New York entry on March 14, Samsung with its Galaxy S4, focused more on upgrading its internals rather than the overall design, similar to what Apple has done while launching the iPhone4S. But here Samsung also made Galaxy S4 thinner ( 7.9 mm) and lighter ( 130 gm) than its predecessor.
The smartphone, running on Google’s Android operating system, boasts of 5-inch 440ppi 1080p HD Super AMOLED display with a density of 441 pixels per inch, bigger than iPhone. Its extra layers of Samsung software will differentiate it from both Apple iPhone and numerous Android rivals.
Samsung S4 is equipped with 1.6GHz quad-core and 1.2 GHz processors and 2GB of RAM. Its 13MP rear and 2MP front cameras are capable of taking shots with both lenses simultaneously while recording sound and attaching it to the image.
It is also fitted with 2600 mAh battery and a memory capacity of 16 GB which can be expandable up to 64 GB via micro SD.
To compete with other rivals, Galaxy S4 is fitted with a few notable features. It has S Translator which converts spoken and written language on the fly, smart scroll and smart pause which track eye movements to automatically scroll the screen or pause videos.
The Air View and Air Gesture allow users to control icons by hovering their finger over the screen and accept calls by waving their hands.
An app called S Drive uses voice recognition to control navigation and communications while driving. Its S Health application helps to keep up-to-date with health and Samsung Hub provides single entry for rich content services.
Samsung Galaxy S4 will be available starting on Saturday between 12 noon to 4 pm at Samsung premium brand stores in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, as well as the Samsung India online store, with some special offers. Samsung has also extended its EMI offer to Galaxy S4 as well.
With research firm Gartner predicting mobile device sales in India to reach 251 million units in 2013, a 13.5 per cent rise over 2012 sales of 221 million units, Samsung is also betting high on its smartphone sales.
" We have a market share of above 40 per cent in the country in smartphone category and looking forward to achieve a 10 per cent increase each year.
When we launched Samsung Galaxy S3 it had registered a three times sales than that of Galaxy S2. Here also we are expecting even better,"Samsung India Electronics (Mobile & Digital Imaging Business) Country Head Vineet Taneja said.
According to recent market research, even though smartphones comprised a small chunk of the overall handset market at about 7 per cent, the high-end category grew at robust 35.7 per cent to 15.2 million devices in 2012 from 11.2 million units in 2011. Feature phones sales, on the other hand, grew 19.9 per cent to 206.4 million in 2012 from 172.2 million in the previous year.