Samsung Delays North American Blu-Ray Player Launch to June

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said on Tuesday it has delayed the U.S. launch of its next-generation DVD player for a month, to late June, in order to complete testing.

Japan's Toshiba Corp. last week started rolling out its HD DVD format players in Japan, becoming the first company to offer next-generation optical disc players worldwide.

Samsung is rescheduling the launch of its Blu-ray standard disc player in the United States to June 25 from May 23, the company said in a statement distributed by a public relations agency.

"We still anticipate that the Samsung BD-P1000 will be the first Blu-Ray player to launch at a national level in the United Sates," Samsung said in a statement.

Japan's Sony Corp. (SNE) plans to offer Blu-ray players in the United States in July.

Blu-ray technology is competing with HD DVD in the emerging war over the next DVD standard, which offers more storage capacity for high-definition movies than the current DVD format. At stake is the $24 billion-a-year home video market.

Samsung's BD-P1000 model is expected to be sold at a $999 street price and include a memory card interface, which enables users to enjoy digital still pictures on a high-definition television.

Toshiba plans to offer two HD DVD models in the United States from April, for $799 and $499, respectively.

Big consumer electronics firms such as Samsung, Sony, Philips (PHG), Dell (DELL) and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (MC) are in the Blu-ray camp.

HD DVD is a format supported by Toshiba and NEC (NIPNY), while Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and LG Electronics Inc. are to support both standards.

Shares in Samsung, the world's biggest maker of memory chips and Asia's most valuable technology company, rose 0.62 percent to 650,000 won ($669.8) by 0125 GMT, compared with the wider market's 0.25 percent gain.