Number two handset vendor Samsung is to invest US$2.1 billion in the world’s largest production line for mobile phone displays as it aims to close the gap on Nokia and increase its share of the smartphone market.  The new line will be built in the southern part of Seoul and will start producing AM-OLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) screens from July next year.

Samsung is heavily pushing AM-OLED technology in its latest line of high-end smartphones. The technology is a next-generation display with more vivid colour, producing crisp images without backlighting, making them slimmer and more energy-efficient than liquid crystal displays. Samsung Mobile Display, the world’s largest maker of displays for mobile devices and a joint venture between Samsung Electronics and rechargeable battery maker Samsung SDI, said in a statement its new production line would have monthly capacity of 30 million 3-inch mobile screens. Only yesterday Bloomberg reported that Samsung aims to more than double its share of the smartphone market, helped by the introduction of its Galaxy S model (pictured) which went on sale last week in some European countries. In the fourth quarter, the South Korean vendor intends to raise its market share for smartphones to more than 10 percent from less than 5 percent today. This would lift its ranking among smartphone makers to fourth from fifth, surpassing HTC. Earlier this year Samsung, which shipped 227 million mobile phones in 2009, said it aims to triple shipments of smartphones in 2010 from 6 million. It also plans to offer a tablet computer, to be called the Galaxy Tab, in the third quarter.