Samsung, LG vie for aggressive marketing for flagship smartphone

By Lee Min-hyung

Samsung and LG are going all-out to promote their new flagship smartphones, in a bid to dominate in their rivalry amid the stagnant growth in the premium handset market.

With Samsung Electronics unveiling its the Galaxy S8 Wednesday, the nation’s leading handset vendors are pushing more aggressive marketing strategies to steal customers from their rivals.

The two firms have their own reasons to get ahead in the smartphone business this year. For Samsung Electronics, the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are the first handsets launched after the global recall of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone last year over battery fires.

Despite the unprecedented disaster, Samsung showed resilience by recovering profits in less than half a year after the incident. But to improve its tarnished brand image and win back customers’ trust, the firm has to prove the new flagship models come with customer-centric innovations in a safer way.

Samsung has succeeded in surprising fans, equipping the devices with a series of innovative features ― such as an iris scanner, face recognition and an “infinite” bezel-less display.

The new flagship models will be available to customers from April 21. As part of the firm’s bid to maximize marketing efforts, the company plans to display the new flagship devices at 3,000 retail stores.

Samsung Electronics has also teamed up with Best Buy, the largest consumer electronics retailer in the United States, in an effort to diversify its revenue in the lucrative territory and steal some of the limelight from Apple’s iPhones.

At the retail chain, the S8 sells with a series of special promotions ― including a $100 price reduction and free Gear virtual reality (VR) headset.

In the U.S. market last year, Samsung Electronics came in second with a share of 25.7 percent, narrowing its gap against market leader Apple’s 32.5 percent, according to data by market researcher Strategy Analytics.

“With the flagship smartphone market reaching saturation each year, competition will continue to get tougher among existing players ― Samsung, LG and Apple ― to grab a larger slice and dominate the next-generation internet of things (IoT) ecosystem,” a mobile industry source said.

LG Electronics is more desperate to win customers’ attention for its G6.

This is because the firm has to achieve a major rebound for its handset division this year, as the company is still struggling with the aftermath of de facto failures of its predecessors ― the G4 and G5.

This month, the firm is holding a special promotion by offering an LG Watch Sports for free for 1,000 G6 customers. Last month, the company also held an event giving away high-end 55-inch organic light-emitting-diode (OLED) TVs to 70 G6 buyers.

The G6 has got off to a good start since its launch in late February at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), largely thanks to its compact size combined with what it calls FullVision 5.7-inch display.

The device did not come with any innovative functions, compared with its Samsung counterparts, but the company expressed confidence that the device would maximize user experiences with enhanced basic features in display, camera and audio.

As the U.S. is the firm’s biggest cash cow market, the firm has set up promotional booths at some 25,000 retail stores there. LG is the third-largest smartphone vendor in the market, along with Apple and Samsung Electronics. The new flagship handset will officially be available for customers there early this month.