""Through our Samsung Blue Project, we intend to become a $10bn region by 2015, growing the market to the size of China's. To achieve this, we will start by more than doubling our 2010 growth to 63% in 2011," said Kwang Kee Park, president of Samsung Electronics Africa.
"Samsung aims to develop the local industry further by establishing further knock-down plants - where currently there are such plants in Sudan, South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Senegal," the company said in a statement.
Samsung is currently embroiled in legal spat with Apple Inc over the style and interface of some of its devices. Apple claims that Samsung violated its intellectual property, but the South Korean giant has hit back saying that it developed products independently."
A google search for "Samsung Electronics Africa" is awash with news of the African foray. It's no surprise really. Following the mobile telecoms dash, we have seen much African expansion from the banks in particular. IPAD2s are selling like hot cakes, as are Kindles. From an IP perspective we have some catching up to do. Copyright legislation, in particular, in most African countries is several generations off the pace. But the companies are prepared to take that risk (and use other methods eg Apple's superior consumer experience) to secure this potential new consumer base.
