SEOUL, KOREA- Samsung Electronics is accelerating its efforts to gain a larger share in the African market. The company has completed and launched a full-scale operation of its TV plant in Egypt, its first production base in Africa.
The Korean electronic giant plans to use the factory as a stepping stone to quadruple its sales of TVs and home electronic items in the continent by 2015.
According to Samsung Electronics on September 1, it completed the construction of a TV monitor factory in Beni Suef, 90 kilometers south of Cairo. With a US$100-million investment, it launched the construction in September 2012. With a total floor space of 366,000 square meters, the factory will produce TVs and monitors that will be sold throughout ten African countries, including Egypt.
Samsung plans to increase the plant’s annual production capacity up to 2 million units by 2017. It is also reviewing the idea of building an R&D center in the premises, while producing not only TVs but also washing machines, refrigerators, and air-conditioners there.
Samsung Electronics, the No. 1 TV maker in the world, ranks No. 1 in the Middle East and African market with a market share of 45 percent (in terms of the sales of flat panel TVs). Even in the categories of refrigerator, washing machine, and air-conditioner, it occupied the top spot last year with a share of 23.4 percent, 38.1 percent, and 26.5 percent respectively.