San Francisco - Samsung is already challenging Apple's iPhone dominance. Now the South Korean electronics giant is eyeing another piece of Apple's pie in what many regard as the next great mobile opportunity: smartwatches.
Just weeks following reports that Apple was working on a wearable wrist computer, Lee Young Hee, an executive vice president at Samsung, told Bloomberg News on Tuesday that her company was also working on a watch-like device that would perform similar tasks to smartphones.
“We've been preparing the watch product for so long,” she said. “We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them.”
Lee gave no details about when the watch would be available or how much it would cost.
Apple has declined to confirm or deny its smartwatch plans, but Bloomberg reports that it has more than 100 people working on the product with which it hopes to make inroads into the market for watches, estimated at $60-billion per year.
Both Apple and Samsung have seen their stock prices battered in recent months as investors are concerned about their ability to keep their growth rates without breakthrough new products. - Sapa-dpa