Samsung Electronics, Gadgets | featured news

Soaring sales of the Galaxy smartphone drove record quarterly profit of $5.9 billion at Samsung Electronics, though the South Korean tech giant is sweating over how Europe's debt crisis is denting demand in its biggest market for televisions and home appliances.

Long-time Japanese rivals Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. are working together to develop next-generation TV panels called OLEDs in a reversal of decades of rivalry as they try to catch up with South Korea's Samsung Electronics.

Samsung Electronics Co said it was investigating reports that one of its flagship Galaxy S III smartphones exploded in a user's car in Ireland... There have been other reports of Samsung smartphones overheating or exploding. In March, a Korean schoolboy reported that a spare battery for his Galaxy S II exploded in his back pocket. Samsung said then that massive external pressure or force caused the explosion.

Nokia shares are trading higher Friday morning in a move that at least one report attributes to dubious rumors that the company could be a takeover target for Samsung. Honestly, the rumor seems ridiculous. Samsung has little reason to buy a struggling handset maker given its own success in dominating the market for Android-based smart ...

Samsung's new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III, will be launched by all of the Big 4 national U.S. wireless carriers this month, starting at $199, the phone maker said Monday.

Samsung design VP Chang Dong-hoon has refuted accusations that the Galaxy S III was designed "by lawyers." Responding to the reports that stated the new handset was tweaked to circumvent deliberate trade dress claims made by Cupertino in its lawsuit, he said that the redesign is part of the company's five-year plan rather than a sudden change. He went on to say that the flagship went through hundreds of iterations before the team alighted upon the model that will shortly make its way into sweaty palms all over the world.

The Samsung Galaxy S III's plastic build may not be to everyone's liking, but the quad-core processor and improved voice control feature show that Samsung's flagship Android line has staying power.

Soaring sales of smartphones lifted Samsung Electronics's profit to a record and apparently pushed the South Korean company past Nokia as the world's biggest cellphone seller—and perhaps past Apple as No. 1 in smartphones.

The evidence continues to mount that the mobile phone business is evolving into a two-horse race. It’s Apple, Samsung, and a host of desperate hangers on. In the first quarter, according to Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt, Apple accounted for about 80% of all profits in the mobile phone business, with Samsung accounting for the rest. The two companies combined, he figures, had 74% of mobile handset industry revenues.

Samsung has decided to pour some fuel on the fire and release a Web site teasing its “next galaxy,” which is likely the update to the Galaxy S II. Most people have been calling this phone the Galaxy S III, though that name is not confirmed. All we know about the next Galaxy is that it will be unveiled at Samsung Unpacked in London on May 3.