Samsung prioritising Android over Bada

Samsung has revealed its smartphone division will focus more of its efforts on Android than its own Bada platform.

The Korean firm has broken down its smartphone release schedule for the next 12 months by operating system, and Android-powered phones account for half of its forthcoming handsets, while phones running Bada account for just a third.

Samsung is clearly intent on taking its time building the Bada ecosystem. Despite announcing the new platform before the turn of the year, the first handset to use it the Samsung Wave is only expected later in the year.

The company has also been slow in embracing Android, with at present just the Galaxy and Galaxy Portal among the Samsung lineup shipping with Google's operating system on board.

But Samsung's willingness to shift so much of its smartphone operation onto the OS speaks volumes about Android's continuing development even if its success ultimately makes Bada's job more difficult.

The OS breakdown left one sixth of the range unaccounted for, which more than likely means these handsets have been earmarked to run Windows Phone 7, but given that Microsoft's next mobile OS still in development, their status remains unconfirmed.

Samsung is part of the Open Handset Alliance, a group set up by Google to take responsibility for the development of Android. Other prominent members include HTC, the company behind the majority of early Android phones, and Qualcomm, whose 1GHz Snapdragon processor has become near-ubiquitous in recent Android devices.