Samsung, world leading handset manufacturer has hinted it would start loading some African pictures, videos, music and dialects into its new handsets beginning from January 2013. Samsung South Africa Chief Operating Officer, George Ferreira disclosed this to Ghanaian journalists at the grand launch of Samsung Galaxy Note II in Cape Town, South Africa, as part of the world tour of the new handset being promoted as a tool designed to enhance creativity. Africa alone accounts for 40% of the 10 million copies of the original Galaxy Note handsets that Samsung has sold globally, but there is hardly any African content in terms of in-built ringtones, language options, and pictures in any of Samsung’s hand held devices. But Ferreira said all that is about to change beginning January 2013. “We are about to launch something in January and that would answer the question about African content in Samsung hand held devices – you will see African videos, music and pictures in our devices,” he said. He hinted that Samsung is gearing up to feature the songs of selected top musicians in Ghana, adding that major tourists sites in places like Kenya, South Africa and other places in Africa would also be included in the in-built wallpaper and screensaver photos. “In Ghana I know we have more than one musician we plan to work with in this direction” he said, but he stopped short of mentioning which Ghanaian musicians have been selected for the purpose. Ferreira also hinted that within the next three to four years, Samsung would establish an assembling plant in West Africa, and Ghana is one of the countries under consideration for the purpose; the other country being Nigeria. He also noted that Samsung has established a number of Engineering Academies across parts of Africa and in the next few years, a similar facility would be established in Ghana and other countries to train young Ghanaian Engineers who have passion for telecoms and electronic engineering. Head of Hand Held Products for Samsung West Africa, Jaspreet Singh told journalists that the Twi dialect has, for instance, been selected as a language option in Samsung devices from next year, confirming that in January Samsung would launch a major initiative and roll out some exciting local content from Africa. But ahead of that, Samsung Ghana is poised to introduce a new Ghanaian brand icon to create an even bigger affinity with the Samsung brand in Ghana, particularly the youth. Singh said currently Samsung hand held devices has the largest market share of 43% in terms of volume and 68% in terms of revenue in Ghana, and he was confident that with the initiatives it would launch later this year and early next year, its market share would further increase.