Samsung's first Tizen-based smartphone, the Z1, was released in India last month and in Bangladesh earlier this month. According to a new report from Business Korea, Samsung is experiencing higher than expected sales of the Z1 in these countries. Since its release in India, the Z1 has been purchased by over 100,000 consumers, while more than 20,000 units were sold in Bangladesh. About 7 million smartphones and 500,000 smartphones are sold per month in India and Bangladesh respectively, so the market share of the Z1 stands at one percent. This number is higher than what Samsung originally expected, especially since it is powered by a completely new operating system.
Apparently, consumers in India have been impressed by the Z1's fast web browsing, excellent multitasking performance, and long battery life, thanks to Samsung's HTML5-based software. The Z1 is priced at INR 5,700 (~ $92) in India, and it competes with a bunch of Android smartphones from Indian as well as Chinese manufacturers. Samsung is expected to launch the Z1 in more emerging countries later this year, and is carrying out aggressive marketing campaigns in India as well as Bangladesh based on its strengths over smartphones based on other platforms. Samsung has also set up a test lab servers for Tizen application developers in Korea, India, Poland, Britain, and the US.
