For the second year in a row, Bahrain continues to be the fastest growing market for Samsung's smartphones, a top official of the company's regional business has said.

Samsung Gulf Electronics' head of telecommunications Hayssam Yassine told the Gulf daily News (GDN), our sister publication, that the company saw high double-digit growth in Bahrain mobile phone sales in the year to date, with its range of smartphones and tablets increasing in popularity.

Samsung says a reason for its success is a range of models from low to high price points to fit different customers.

Yassine was speaking in Dubai on the sidelines of the launch of the fifth generation of the Galaxy S series smartphone, the Galaxy S5, and its companion device, the Gear Fit, billed as the industry's first curved, super AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) display technology wearable device.

"With the Galaxy S5, Samsung has gone back to the drawing board to work on adding real value to our consumers' lives, while giving them best-in-class capabilities in the market," said Mr Yassine.

"The intuitive technologies of the Galaxy S5 and the Gear Fit motivate and support our consumers to help them maximise each moment and effortlessly stay in control of their lives," he added.

Galaxy S5's key features include a 16 megapixel camera and according to Samsung, "the world's fastest autofocus".

The device is International Protection Marking (IP67) dust and water resistant, comes with a finger scanner, which provides a secure, biometric screen-locking feature and ultra power saving mode.

The official also announced the regional launch of software development kit (SDK) for the new Gear smartwatch, powered by Samsung-made Tizen OS.

The SDK is a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications.

While Yassine said that the wearables are the next big thing, and the company is investing heavily in developing new types of devices, industry experts say adoption has been sluggish with consumers waiting for the "killer app" or revolutionary design and functionality.

He did not share data on how many of the Gear the company had sold in the region since its launch last year.

Starting April 11, the Samsung Galaxy S5 will be available across leading retail outlets in Bahrain in three models.

The Galaxy S5 (LTE) 32GB will retail at BD290 ($765). The Galaxy S5 (LTE) 16GB will cost BD270, and the Galaxy S5 (3G) 16GB will retail for BD260.

Fitness-oriented wearables the Gear Fit, the Samsung Gear 2 and the Gear 2 Neo will retail at BD80, BD120 and BD80 respectively. – TradeArabia News Service