Samsung launches ultra-slim notebook, targets Apple

Foreign visitors look around at a showroom displaying Samsung Electronics' products at the company's headquarters in Seoul July 7, 2010.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd launched an ultra-slim notebook on Thursday, seeking to bolster its presence in the high-end mobile computer segment dominated by Apple Inc.

Samsung, emerging as one of the strongest rivals to challenge Apple in the booming smartphone and tablet computer market, is eyeing the notebook market, in which Apple is seeking to replicate the success of the iPhone and iPad with its MacBook series.

Samsung launched the lightweight 9 Series notebook on Thursday to compete with Apple's ultra-thin MacBook Air, introduced in October. Samsung said the new laptop would cost 2.5 million won ($2,218) in Korea and would launch globally launched from next month in the Americas and Europe.

Apple displaced Hewlett-Packard Co last quarter as the world's top mobile PC maker, propelled by strong sales of its iPad tablet, according to research firm DisplaySearch. It shipped more than 10 million notebook and tablet computers last quarter for a 17 percent market share, nearly a million more than HP, which had a 15.6 percent market.

Samsung said on Thursday that it wanted to become the global No.6 player in the mobile PC market this year from last year's seventh place.

(Reporting by Miyoung Kim and Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Chris Lewis)