Samsung to launch faster Galaxy S4 smartphone

Samsung Electronics Co plans to sell a variation of its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone that will transmit data at nearly twice the normal speed, the head of its mobile business said on Monday.

J.K. Shin, also co-chief executive of the world's biggest technology firm by revenue, said the phone would be sold in South Korea as early as this month.

Samsung was in talks with several overseas carriers to take the phone, Shin told Reuters in an interview at Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, just south of Seoul. He declined to name the carriers.

"We'll be the first with the commercial launch of the advanced 4G version of the smartphone," Shin said.

The new S4 will use LTE-Advanced 4G technology, an upgrade from conventional 4G called LTE, or long term evolution. LTE-Advanced offers data transmission at up to twice the normal 4G speed. The phones will be powered by Qualcomm chips.

A movie download that takes 3 minutes with conventional 4G would take slightly more than 1 minute, Samsung said.

Samsung's shares have lost almost $20 billion since June 7 after analysts cut forecasts for Galaxy S4 sales by as much as 30 percent on industry data that showed the high-end smartphone market was getting saturated.

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