Samsung had a sobering admission this week: Apple is getting its way in the ever-expanding tablet market, with one company executive conceding at the ongoing Barcelona Mobile World Congress that the Galaxy Tab product lines were not selling as expected.

Media reports indicated that Apple has so far sold more than 50 million units of iPads and with the scheduled launch of the anticipated iPad 3 in March, analysts agree that 2012 could once again prove as a record year for the trend-setting tablet computer.

Also, it is likely that iPad 2 will deliver last minute sales surges for Apple as Mashable reported that the device's retail price was slashed by $US50 in the run up to its replacement's rumoured release on March 7.

As all the numbers favour Apple, Hankil Yoon, Samsung's product strategy chief, told reporters attending the MWC trade event that Galaxy tablet sales were somewhat a disappointment for the South Korean firm.

"Honestly, we're not doing very well in the tablet market," CNET reported Yoon as saying on Tuesday.

The tech news site added that in contrast to its smartphone products, global sales figures of which were second only to Apple as of December 2011, Samsung's strings of Galaxy tablet computers failed to make a dent in the lucrative North American market.

That region has been largely an Apple kingdom since tablet computers started luring consumer attention in 2010, with only Amazon's Kindle Fire offering the most viable from of competition, CNET wrote.

Analysts said Samsung is not lagging behind in terms of tablet design, features and functions (attributes that attracted a number of lawsuits from Apple last year) yet the Galaxy Tab's premium price served as the main downside of the product.

It appears that consumers would rather snap up an iPad instead of plunking down almost the same amount of cash for a premium Android tablet, which is what the Galaxy Tab is all about regardless of the various sizes it assumes.

Kindle Fire offers the same tablet function with lower price, which is the device's main selling point, analysts said.

On that not alone, the Galaxy Tab product lines will be hard-pressed to compete and Yoon admitted that after more than year of trying to come up with the right formula to put up a veritable challenge against the iPad onslaught, Samsung has been largely grappling in the dark.

Except for one specific unit though, the Samsung official added, which is the recently launched Galaxy Note - a 5-inch device marketed by the company as both a tablet and a smartphone.

Tech experts greeted Galaxy Note's arrival with mixed reactions, with some shooting down the confusing features that the gadget carry while many praising Samsung's ingenious idea of fusing both the form and features of currently the two dominant devices that consumers buy.

The tech world even coined a new name for the Samsung - phablet, CNET said.

And Yoon is banking on the likelihood that what Galaxy Tab had failed to do, that is killing the iPad, the Galaxy Note will eventually succeed in doing.

But first, Yoon said Galaxy Note must do the necessary, annihilating its siblings, specifically the controversial Galaxy tab 10.1.

"We want to stay competitive in the market ... and the best thing to survive in the market is to kill your products," Yoon said.

And with that, the Samsung official revealed company plans of releasing 10.1 version of the Galaxy Note, with projections that some 10 million units will be shipped out this year.

Samsung expressed confidence that the large-screen Galaxy Note will eventually catch on smartphone users wishing to simultaneously enjoy the features of both a tablet and a mobile phone.