By Jonathan Cheng 

SEOUL-- Samsung Electronics Co. will release a smartphone in India that runs its homegrown Tizen operating system, a major step by the world's largest phone maker in advancing an alternative to Google Inc.'s dominant Android platform.

The planned launch, scheduled for Wednesday in New Delhi, comes after a year of frustrations and near-misses, underscoring the challenges of competing in the cutthroat market for mobile software and services, which is increasingly dominated by Google and Apple Inc.

By focusing on first-time smartphone users in India and loading Tizen onto other electronic devices like televisions and smartwatches, Samsung hopes to gain a foothold in parts of the market where its Silicon Valley rivals aren't entrenched players. The entry-level device, dubbed the Samsung Z1, will be priced at less than $100.

Tizen's success is far from guaranteed, and industry watchers say the new smartphone is likely to face long odds at a time when profits at Samsung's mobile division are slipping. But with competitors quickly gaining ground, Samsung is eager to use its lead in the global handset market to establish itself in software and services.

Samsung has released a series of devices powered by Tizen, including cameras, smartwatches and a prototype television, but it has struggled to develop a Tizen-powered smartphone. Smartphones are widely regarded as the most important consumer-electronic devices because they have driven much of the industry's innovation and profit over the past eight years.

On several occasions last year, Samsung tried to launch a Tizen smartphone variously in Japan, France, Russia and India. In each case, the South Korean company or its partners balked at the last minute, citing a lack of support from the market--from carriers and from app developers.

This time around, Samsung overcame these obstacles by bypassing carriers and app developers, selling the phone directly through its retail networks and using Web versions of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to cover over the fact that none of those companies built Tizen-specific apps. Users can, however, download Facebook Inc.'s WhatsApp from Tizen's app store.

Samsung has suggested that it will play up the Samsung brand name to sell the new device in a bid to compensate for Tizen's relative obscurity.

Samsung executives say they believe that if the new smartphone can gain traction in India--a fast-growing market where the company estimates 70% of people still use basic cellphones--Tizen could build a big enough following to attract some app developers. That, in turn, could help it build more credibility with consumers and developers.

Samsung is planning to put Tizen into almost every product it manufactures, including home appliances and wearable devices, where there isn't a strong incumbent platform. The company is trying to establish itself as a leader in the "Internet of things," the effort to connect household items to one another.

At a trade show in Las Vegas last week, Samsung co-Chief Executive B.K. Yoon outlined Samsung's broad ambitions for the Internet of things, and said every Samsung television would soon be powered by Tizen. Samsung is the world's largest maker of televisions, with about one-third of the global market.

Google, whose Android platform powers nearly every smartphone that Samsung now sells, has been closely monitoring Tizen's development, and some Android executives are concerned about the possibility of Google's biggest smartphone partner trying to build an alternative, low-end operating system.

Launching a successful mobile operating system is a tall order. The market has calcified around Android and Apple's iOS, which together accounted for 95.8% of smartphones sold in the third quarter of 2014, according to market-research firm Gartner.

Attempts by Microsoft Corp. and BlackBerry Ltd., among others, to break that duopoly have foundered. Neither has succeeded in grabbing more than 5% of the market.

"Carving out a significant share of the smartphone market with a new operating system will be very challenging for Samsung, even with a low-end device," said Cathy Boyle, an analyst at research firm eMarketer. "Android smartphones, which run the gamut in price, have a variety of apps to choose from--apps specifically designed to run on the cheaper and somewhat less-sophisticated devices."

Even Samsung's Mr. Yoon has acknowledged the challenges. In an interview ahead of last week's trade show, he said that, "for phones, apps are important. For a Tizen phone to come out, there needs to be an ecosystem of apps."

As Samsung struggled to launch a Tizen smartphone last year, aggressive low-cost competitors like India's Micromax Informatics Ltd. and China's Xiaomi Corp. dug into Samsung's market share with sleek Android smartphones at a fraction of Samsung's prices.

Last September, Google's Android chief, Sundar Pichai, flew to New Delhi to announce a partnership with local manufacturers to launch phones priced at about $100 and running a version of Android that is tightly controlled by Google.

Samsung itself has been a contributor to, and a beneficiary of, Android's strength, and has been careful not to be seem to plug Tizen too aggressively. The company frequently talks up its commitment to Android, which provided Samsung with a readymade platform but effectively transferred control over the user experience on its own smartphones to Google.

Samsung has attempted to modify Android to give its smartphones a distinct experience, but Google has clamped down on how much Android its Android partners can tweak their phones.

Write to Jonathan Cheng at jonathan.cheng@wsj.com

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