Samsung Story: How to Become No 1

Assalamualaikum.

Everywhere people are talking about Samsung and its latest smartphone model. Although I’m not really a ‘gadget person’, Samsung has become my favourite brand for both smartphone and tabs since the last 2 years.

Just few years ago Samsung was struggling to catch up in the smartphone market.  But today, Samsung has successfully repositioned itself as a prestige brand with variety of desirable products backed by clever and focused marketing campaigns.

Source : Google

Samsung’s Key Strategies:

·      Ensure best quality and ‘cool-looking’ product

·      Focus on 3 qualities: ‘WOW’, simplicity and exclusivity. Each department in Samsung has a quota on how many ‘WOW’ product can be produced each year.

·      Brand awareness – Allocated huge budget for advertisement to create brand awareness and to introduce their products. Last year, the company had increased its advertising budget by 5x to $401 million (from $78m). That amount were significantly higher compared to other competitors in Android market.

·      'Learn' from competitors and understand market response. By leveraging the information from these 2 factors, Samsung has created its own products, based on their version and innovation. However, this strategy has driven the company into trouble in the past, when Samsung lost a high profile case to Apple.

·      Variety of devices. Samsung has differentiated their products from its nearest competitor with larger screens and different features i.e Galaxy Notes

·      The first step is to start small: make a key component for that industry. Samsung is the world’s largest chip maker. “Why just sell chip to others when it could use them to power its own products?”.   As microchip is one of the components in smartphones, Samsung has enjoying cost  advantage and be more flexible in terms of what to produce and when. This has really supported Samsung’s transformation into a premier consumer brand.

In July 2003, the global consulting firm, Interbrand declared Samsung the world’s fasters growing brand. And today, Samsung has become one of the market leaders for electronic products and among the world’s largest electronics company by revenue.

 “To be truly number one, you have not simply to be known. You have to be loved” Eric Kim, Head of Global Marketing Operation, Samsung.

Thank You. Wassalam.


References:

1.    100 Great Business and the Minds Behind Them (a book)

2.    Bloomberg Businessweek

3.    Business Insider Strategy