“Electronics giant Samsung said Apple will feel the heat this year,” Michael Kanellos reports for CNET News. “South Korea-based Samsung last year publicly vowed to take away Apple’s top spot in music players by 2007. This year it will kick off that effort with a bevy of products and large ad campaigns, according to Peter Weedfald, senior vice president of consumer electronics for Samsung’s North American division, during an interview last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Macworld, Apple’s opportunity to be in the spotlight, begins this week.”

“‘What’s the difference between how they have gone to market and how we have gone to market? It’s real simple. They spent $165 million last year to advertise Apple MP3 products. We spent $1 million,’ Samsung’s Weedfald said. ‘We are going to break the code. In 2006, we are going to over-invest in advertising and marketing around these really hot new digital video and digital audio products, and we will spend tens of millions of dollars,’” Kanellos reports. “Apple has maintained a distant lead in the MP3 market. So to gain market share, Samsung said it will issue a broad array of products, some of which it expects to become breakaway hits. That’s how the company became a top player globally in cell phones… Many of the company’s music players will sport dual functionality. The Helix and Nexus MP3 players, unfurled at CES, come with an integrated XM satellite radio receiver.”

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