The shifted focus to low-end phones for Samsung (News - Alert) Electronics was not driven by profit motive according to a senior executive of the company.

By pushing its cheap, low-end phones with a $25 price tag (News - Alert), the company has won market share in the low end of the market over Nokia each month.

Won-Pyo Hong, executive vice president for global product strategy told Reuters, “"Those phones are not really profit oriented. We are not selling $25 phones to make a profit; we want to make sure the first phone they grab is Samsung.”

Companies like RadioShack have helped push the trend—last January the reseller featured a special selling the low-end phones for only $1.

Won-Pyo added the company’s initiative for the year is to reach sales of more than 300 million cell phones—with additional expectations of an increase of Samsung smartphones to more than double to 60 million from the 25 million sold last year.

More recent developments showing the company’s continuing growth in the smartphone market is its recent release to the Android (News - Alert) market— the Samsung Gem, equipped with a large touch screen and the Android 2.1 suite with Google mobile services: Search, Maps and GPS.

The Gem also has user interface applications allowing customers to integrate Outlook, Facebook (News - Alert) and Gmail contacts, as well as social networking features like the one-touch direct to social site photo posting.