Having recently suffered a setback in the US, word has hit the web that Samsung's new OS Tizen may have also run into trouble in the east.

Japan's largest carrier NTT DoCoMo has backed out of it's original plans to launch the Korean giant's new platform in the region this March.

A spokesman for the company has claimed the "market is not big enough to support three operating systems at this time."

When the time is right

Indeed, statistics seem to back up the operator's point, with IDC claiming the Japanese smartphone market saw growth of just 2.2 percent between April to September.

Conversely, Samsung's risen for declining a Tizen launch in the US is that the American market "is pretty mature."

"Bringing a new entrant here that doesn't meet a certain performance bar would be a challenge," said Ryan Bidan, director of product marketing at Samsung US.

The end result is that the future of Tizen as a commercial prospect looks increasingly shaky, with commentators speculating (with just a hint of irony) that it may go the way of MeeGo – the discontinued OS developed by Nokia and Intel.

Samsung's previous attempt to launch its own OS - bada - was similarly troubled, with the platform failing to gain any international momentum as consumers flocked towards Android.

[source: Marketwatch]