By Chris Nicholls

SYDNEY: Samsung has announced it plans to become the world’s number one electronics brand, up from third now, by as early as the end of next year.

Announced during a whitegoods roadshow yesterday, whitegoods marketing division general manager, Mark Leathan, told journalists of Samsung’s plans to up annual turnover by approximately US$20 billion by 2009, which would take it to world number one.

“Last year we turned over in excess of US$100 billion. By our fortieth birthday, which is next year, the ambition of Samsung worldwide is to be number one in the world – that’s about US$120 billion,” Leathan said.

Leathan said Samsung had no specific areas it would focus on for this growth, saying it was part of a uniform global push.

Samsung finished third last year behind Siemens and HP, who turned over US$104.3 billion and US$104.2 billion respectively. By contrast, Samsung earned US$100.5 billion, but was up 58 per cent on 2006, year on year.

Locally, Leathan boasted Samsung Australia sold approximately $1.2 billion, with approximately 50 per cent growth, making it “the fastest growing” company in its market.