Samsung has hinted that it may drop the Symbian operating system next year as it switches focus to its own in-house baba platform, reports Taiwan’s DigiTimes. According to Samsung’s senior vice-president, Don Joo Lee, the world’s second-largest handset vendor will continue to adopt Windows Mobile- and Android-based platforms alongside bada-based phones but may not roll-out any new Symbian-based models to the global market in 2010. However, the executive said that some Symbian handsets will still hit the Taiwan market at the end of 2009 or in early 2010. In an upbeat market forecast this week, the vendor said that its global device shipments will exceed 200 million this year and will grow by 10-20 percent in 2010.

Samsung unveiled its new bada platform earlier this week to complement its existing mobile applications store. The vendor said that the platform will enable developers to create applications for “millions” of new Samsung mobile devices allowing it to compete with applications platforms from the likes of Apple (App Store), Google (Android Market) and Nokia (Ovi). Samsung will host an official launch event for bada in London next month and will unveil its bada software development kit (SDK) to developers for the first time on this date. The first bada smartphones will launch in the first half of next year.