Under the new marketing strategy, the company has made Electra International its cell phone distributor in Bangladesh.

The South Korean company set up South West Asia Regional Headquarters in New Delhi covering Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives in February to boost its market share of electronic products.

Addressing a press briefing as part of an annual celebration in Bangladesh, Kwang-Soo Kim, president and CEO of Samsung South West Asia Regional Headquarters, said Bangladesh is a booming market for consumer electronics.

"We will provide world class products to consumers of this fast growing market. The cellular market is growing in the fastest rate and we can be a market leader in this segment by 2006," he said.

"Apart from cellular handsets we want to be market leader in refrigerator, television, washing machine, PC monitor segment. Samsung plans to use its R&D centre in India to offer products and features customised to meet requirements of its customers in Bangladesh," he said.

Now Samsung mobile handsets will come through official distributor and the products will enjoy guarantee and other after sales service, he said. "As market grows, Samsung will have opportunity to increase its market share in Bangladesh."

Md Zakiullah Shahid, managing director of Electra International Ltd, distributor of Samsung home appliance in Bangladesh, said, "We can offer handsets ranging from Tk 6,000 to Tk 25,000 with one spare battery, guarantee and after sales service."

He said duty on mobile handsets should be reduced to a flat rate of Tk 1,000 in the budget for the next fiscal to ensure rapid growth of telecommunications sector.