Promotion
Samsung Electronics abruptly canceled a press event to unveil its tablet PC, the Galaxy Tab, stirring speculation about technical problems or price discords with its distributor SK Telecom.
The conference was originally scheduled for Thursday.
“We decided to defer the press meeting and the domestic release in a bid to offer contents and applications which are more customized for local users and to provide the most optimized product for them,” Samsung said in a statement on Tuesday.
Samsung had been expected to release the device within this month. A new date has yet to be set for both the press event and the release, they said.
The notice came only a day after the global electronics manufacturer notified reporters that it will be holding a launching event, attended by its mobile business chief Shin Jong-kyun.
“We need more time because we need to improve the contents for the device and we came to a conclusion that the gap between the press meeting and the release date should not be big,” a Samsung official said.
Multiple industry insiders say the delays may have resulted from a bug found while interlocking the device with communication networks, negotiation problems with its service provider SK Telecom or internal issues.
Although Samsung declined to comment further, industry sources said there were rumors that a bug was found in the device’s Wi-Fi or 3G networks.
In order to release a gadget to the market, it has to qualify tests which are conducted by interlocking it with the service provider’s communication network, which would be SKT for Galaxy Tab.
“If the device fails to pass the tests for the 3G network, it could indicate that data reception or response time was poor when using certain applications or that it was taking up too much data traffic,” said a communication network expert.
An SKT official, however, said that the problem was more related to problems that were found while negotiating on the type of payment plan and amount of subsidies which need to be issued for Samsung’s new 7-inch tablet PC.
There is also the possibility of internal problems at Samsung, such as unresolved issues within Samsung Group, an industry source said.
“An issue that concerns the group may be deemed as significant enough to warrant such a delay,” he said, declining to be identified.
Regarding speculation about technical glitches, he said the company may have decided on a delay after it garnered some negative reviews following the unveiling of its Galaxy S smartphone to the media earlier this year.
Despite some of the initial bad press, the phone currently has a lead in the local smartphone market.
Samsung expects to sell 10 million Galaxy S handsets by the year’s end. It has already sold more than 5 million.
Galaxy Tab’s biggest rival, the iPad, seemed to be in better shape to be launched.
Apple on Monday applied for a radio wave certification. Assuming the process goes without a hitch, it will mean that technically, the iPad can be launched by Friday.
But speculation has it that Apple will bide its time, choosing to release its tablet PC around November.
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