Samsung Plans More Tizen Smartphones For 2015 After Z1 Crosses 1 Million Sales Mark

While most of the attention Samsung draws is for its Android-powered phones like the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note, the company isn’t giving up on Tizen -- its open-source mobile operating system -- anytime soon. The South Korean smartphone manufacturer plans to launch more handsets running the OS later this year, according to Reuters.

Next month Samsung plans to launch a gold version of its first Tizen smartphone, the Z1. The move comes as Samsung’s smartphone crossed the 1 million-sales mark in India, according to the Economic Times. Google’s Android powers its Galaxy devices and Tizen mostly powers Samsung’s Gear smartwatches and its smart TV sets. While the company is expanding the operating system’s footprint into more smartphones, it doesn’t want to stop there.

Samsung plans to introduce a “flood of devices” that run Tizen later this year, from smartphones to washing machines, according to a company blog post in January. Tizen was originally expected to be a direct competitor to Android and iOS. But following several delays, Samsung launched Tizen on the Z1 as a low-cost option for emerging markets, starting with India.

Samsung's Tizen push in India comes as it looks to turn around the plummeting smartphone sales it saw in 2014, while Apple’s iPhone and Chinese domestic smartphone manufacturers ate away at its global and Chinese smartphone market share. But as Samsung looks to grow Tizen, so Apple and other device manufacturers are also looking to get a piece of the growing smartphone market in India.