South Korean electronics giant Samsung’s local arm, PT Samsung Electronics Indonesia (SEIN), aims to be one of the top three brands in the Indonesian netbook market despite being a late arrival.
“We are very keen to launch the Samsung netbooks as we see significant growth to meet customers’ needs with devices to connect them with information,” SEIN managing director Kim Yoo-young told reporters in the netbook launching event.
“We aim to grab one of the top three positions in the netbook market as there are only a relatively small number of vendors.”
PT Pazia Pillar Mercycom is sole distributor for Samsung netbooks.
Pazia managing director Yuliasiane Sulistiyawati said currently her firm was focusing on Jakarta and Bandung with more than 40 and 20 outlets respectively. “After Jakarta and Bandung, we will focus on major cities in Java. By the end of this year, we expect to have reached all major cities in Indonesia,” she said.
“Internet penetration in Indonesia is still low at less than 10 percent so there is plenty of growth opportunity especially for netbooks.”
Yuliasiane also said it was the perfect time for Samsung to launch its netbooks as Internet connections in Indonesia are now much better than they were five or six years ago.
Major computer vendors such as Asus, Acer, HP and Lenovo have all offered their netbooks in the past two years.
Samsung is banking on long battery life and stylish design to offset its late entry into the market.
Two netbook models were introduced by SEIN, the N210 and N150.
The N210 offers mobile connectivity for up to 12 hours while the N150 can do up to 11 hours based on the Battery Mark benchmark.
With 10.1-inch LED monitors, both netbooks are powered by Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz processor with 1 GB of memory and 250 GB of storage.
The N210, priced at US$519, has the Instant-On feature which the $469 N150 does not.
Samsung also says both models are TCO certified for environmental and usability standards and are compliant with environmental standards such as ECO RoHS.
