Samsung Electronics, the leading touch-screen phone manufacturer in the world, is considering adding Apple’s patent, “multi-touch” to its mobile phone, according to a company executive.

Dong-hoon Chang, head of Samsung’s mobile device design group, said at the Mobile World 2009 on Wednesday, “We are thinking about using Apple’s multi-touch technology, but I cannot confirm that this will be realized right away.”

Samsung’s interest in Apple’s multi-touch seems to be related to the company’s plan to expand capacitive type touch-screen panel adoption. In a recent report, Samsung Securities said, “Samsung will increase the portion of capacitive touch-screen phones from under 20% this year to double that next year.” Capacitive technology is the same touch-screen type used for Apple’s multi-touch capable iPhone and iPod touch.

Samsung may think that the pointing function using a finger in the capacitive environment is more useful than the merit of the “writing” function offered by a stylus pen in the resistive touch-screen environment, the report said.

Meanwhile, touch-screen mobile phones will represent 10% of total handset shipments, or 114 million units this year, up from 4.4%, or 52 million units last year, according to research firm Displaybank.

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