Samsung Electronics, Korea's biggest digital products maker has announced plans for a digital media player application like iTunes of Apple Computer.

Samsung president Choi Gee-sung made the remarks during a press conference late last week South Korean newspaper the Chosun Ilbo reports.

"We are now in talks with our partners to debut a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease," the 54-year-old said.

"Our items show healthy performances in China and Southeast Asian countries where iTunes services are not provided," he added.

Choi said the service will be launched domestically and overseas shortly.Choi gave no other details, but the service is likely to be founded on Windows Media technology, leaving Samsung competing against the likes of Napster, Virgin Digital, HMV and Yahoo! Music reports the Register

Samsung, a latecomer in the MP3 digital audio player business, has tried to catch up with Apple, which commands the portable audio player market.

The Seoul-based firm has vended flash memory-based items with a brand of Yepp and sold about 1.7 million MP3 players last year. Choi said the success of iPod has affected Samsung minimally and the company has enough energy to jump over bigger competitors.