Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, during a meeting with analysts, announced its plan to double its dividend yield, invest in new technology and boost marketing. Samsung was specific with its strategy: to snatch the tablet marketshare from Apple Inc.'s iPads which dominate the market.

Primarily, all efforts were aimed to "topple Apple Inc. in the mobile devices segment."

Though Samsung had already increased its smartphone market share to a record of 35.2 per cent share in July-September quarter (Apple at 13.4 per cent), the company remained second fiddle in terms of the tablet market. In a recent report from IDC, Samsung had 20.4 per cent of the tablet business while Apple Inc had 29.6 per cent.

"Our tablet sales significantly increased already this year. So we are ready for the next step," as announced by J.K. Shin, co-chief executive and head of Samsung's mobile business.

Samsung's mobile business contributed to two-thirds of Samsung's overall revenue. Mr Shin announced that Samsung is already worth $228 billion.

But, Samsung vowed to continue investing wisely on its marketing campaigns. The company believes that spending in advertisements can heighten sales of their soon to be launched products.

"We have technologies ready to bring new innovation into the market soon. At the same time, we'll leverage our Galaxy brand, distribution channel and global networks," Mr Shin explained.

As part of its marketing strategy, Samsung is expanding its mobile "experience shops", conduct more international events like that of the Galaxy S4 event at Manhattan's Radio City Music hall. The company will also participate in new marketing platforms like sponsoring fashion shows internationally.

However, shareholders were unconvinced as Samsung had decreased its stock price to 2.3 per cent lower in a flat wider market. Samsung only traded at seven times projected earnings while Apple traded at a premium of 12 per cent, 4-Traders reported.

Shareholders were also apprehensive about Samsung's bloated marketing budget.

Even if Samsung spends 6.5 per cent of its sales for its advertisements, outlays were predicted to increase 16 per cent - $14.2 billion for 2013. CFO Lee Sang-hoon had estimated R&D spending at $14 billion.

Shareholder also saw that returns were at their worst during the span of five years. Investors were only getting 5.1 per cent of the profit in 2012 as compared to 15.8 per cent total shareholder returns back in 2007.

But Mr Lee remained optimistic.

"Our management view is that our product valuation multiple does not truly reflect our earnings growth and leadership position in the IT industry," he explained.

He assured investors that Samsung will come up with new dividend strategy which will be based on a target yield. Samsung also vowed to be more flexible in approaching shareholders' returns through a constant review of returns every after three years.

Mr Lee reiterated that Samsung will focus on its 2013 payout targeted to be around 1 per cent of the share price compared to 0.5 per cent in 2012 - investors took this as an implication that Samsung was hoarding away cash.

"I know we have been somewhat conservative in M&A but it may be different in the future. Based on this, I don't believe the current level of net cash balance is excessive. We plan to allocate a significant portion of our annual cash flow into capex and R&D to secure future growth and shareholder return."

In support, Robert Yi, head of Samsung's investors' relations told analysts that investors and Samsung should work well together.

"This indicates if you help our share prices go up, dividend will go up because we got a target dividend yield. That's the magic of this whole formula."