Samsung aims to sell up to 250,000 mirrorless cameras this year

A man shops at a Samsung Electronics shop in Seoul July 29, 2011.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics said on Thursday that it aimed to sell this year up to 250,000 compact, interchangeable-lens cameras, a nascent but growing segment joined recently by Japan's Nikon.

"We expect our mirrorless camera sales to reach 170,000 to 250,000 units this year," Han Myoung-sup, a senior vice president at Samsung, told reporters at a launching event for its new mirrorless camera, the NX200.

Samsung said the global mirrorless camera market was forecast to grow to 3 million units this year, citing IDC data.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)