Global smartphone leader Samsung Electronics Co. will hold a two-day gathering of developers on its own Tizen operating system in China next week, partnered with Chinese Internet firms Baidu Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., a company official said Friday.

Samsung unveiled its first Tizen-based smartphone in India earlier this year, as part of its years-long push to build its own mobile-phone ecosystem, like Google Inc.'s Android and Apple Inc's iOS.

It would be the first time that Samsung holds such a conference with Baidu, China's biggest search engine, and Tencent, China's second-largest Internet firm, the official said on the condition of anonymity.

The conference will be held in China's southern industrial city of Shenzhen on Sept. 17-18.

In a brief statement about the conference, Samsung said the Shenzhen conference "aims to maximize the ecosystem behind Tizen."

Samsung reported an 8 percent drop on year in its second-quarter net profit this year, hit by an intensifying competition with Chinese makers such as Huawei Technologies Co. and Xiaomi Inc. (Yonhap)