Sales of smartphones, which allow users to surf the net, sendemails, run games and listen to music, apart from their use asphones, could reach 600,000 units this year in Romania, estimaterepresentatives of South-Korean company Samsung.
"The market could grow from 400,000 units in 2010 to around600,000 this year," said Sorin Manea, manager of Samsung's telecomdivision. He said Samsung had sold over 50,000 units of the GalaxyS from July 2010 until the present. Samsung's smartphone,considered to be one of the leading rivals of Apple's iPhone, costs400 euros, but it can cost as little as 100 euros if bought with aphone and mobile Internet subscription. The market will grow inpart because manufacturers will launch new mobile phones, as wellas because the strong advertising for mobile Internet is provingfruitful.
The number of mobile phones sold last year in Romania fell byaround 20% amid the difficult economy, to 3.3-3.5 million units.Romanians paid 250 million euros for mobile phones last year,according to Samsung data.
