Tag Archives: Samsung

Shifting power of technology brands

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Technology Brands

The Economist charts 2013′s most powerful global brands and the biggest risers.

Technology firms dominate with Apple taking top slot. No surprise there.

Google is second. Likewise no surprise.

IBM is in third place just a tad behind Google – that’s curious.

AT&T is just an American thing, while China Mobile mainly matters in just one big country.

Which brings us to Microsoft. In seventh place it is still one of the world’s most valuable brands, but clearly behind Apple and Google. This roughly squares with the three companies’ performance in delivering technology to consumers and their relative positions in the mobile device market.

IBM is an outlier. It remains a powerful business-to-business brand, yet the company barely features in technology news reports and hardly touches everyday consumers. Moreover, IBM is a non-combatant in the mobile device game.  Does this mean journalists like me and readers like you should take more notice of IBM?

Samsung features in the biggest risers table growing more than 50% in the past year. Even if it can keep up that pace – which is unlikely – it will be a years before it features as one of the most valuable brands. However, the company is moving onto the radar as a major technology player. Again, this reflects the company’s performance.

More insulting marketing from Samsung

Samsung seems to think New Zealand is part of Australia. Here’s the latest flyer mailed to NZ  customers. Apparently we’re supposed to submit a photo capturing the essence of what it is to be Australian. I’m sending a picture of me watching the Blackcaps beating Australia in 2011. What are my chances of winning?

Samsung

Android brand fades as numbers climb

androidHere’s a puzzle. How come Android’s brand is diminishing at the same time the OS now dominates the smartphone sector?

Gartner’s February 2013 smartphone sales report estimate’s Android’s worldwide market share at 70%. That’s more than three times Apple’s iOS which has a 21% market share. Microsoft Windows Phone is on just 3%. 

Android dominates, so why doesn’t Google’s smartphone software command consumer mind share?

The answer is simple. Nobody aspires to buy an Android handset.

Ordinary smartphone buyers don’t chose operating systems, they choose brands. They want an Apple or a Samsung, maybe even an HTC or Nokia.

Only a particularly rare breed of geek would talk of buying an Android.

This is a direct result of the way Google developed Android. The software is open to all comers. Samsung, HTC and the like take the basic Android OS and overlay it with their own software. They do their level best to hide Android from users.

Android was barely mentioned during Samsung’s Galaxy G4 launch. Other smartphone makers do little more than nod at Google when announcing and promoting their products.

Efforts to hide Android stepped up a notch last week when Facebook and HTC took the wraps  off Facebook Home. The software is an overlay that pushes Android even further into the background.

Google’s efforts to protect the Android brand haven’t succeeded. The company bought Motorola and sells Google-branded Nexus phones which are conspicuous by their absence in New Zealand.

It isn’t entirely clear how Google makes money from Android. One theory says an Android user plugged into a Google account using Google apps delivers a steady stream of data to the company that can be mined to sell yet more advertising.

But this doesn’t always apply – certainly not in China where Google is blocked and not on an Android phone running Facebook Home. Maybe those smartphone maker software overlays also block Google’s data collection – or will do in the future.

So here’s another puzzle. If Google isn’t making money from Android, how long will it go on spending large sums of money developing the OS? Might Google unsentimentally drop Android the way it dropped Google Reader?

 

The problem smartphone makers face

Samsung Galaxy S4 looks a lot like the SIII

Samsung Galaxy S4 looks a lot like the SIII

Samsung’s Galaxy S4 launch highlights a wider smartphone industry problem.

After five years of stellar growth and stunning hardware improvements, phone makers are running out of headroom for innovation.

Samsung’s Galaxy SIII is the world’s top-selling smartphone for a good reason. It offers the mix of features customers want in the right package. The Galaxy S4 updates a winning formula. There were no serious shortcomings to fix.

Which means the Galaxy S4 is an incremental hardware upgrade. It looks a lot like the Galaxy SIII all the improvements are not immediately obvious. There’s a slightly bigger screen, more camera pixels and a faster processor.

All good stuff, but possibly not enough for existing SIII owners to feel a need to switch immediately to the new model.

The headline features outlined at today’s global launch function are powerful software applications – mainly adding functionality that could previously be purchased from app store vendors.

That’s a sensible move. Today’s best smartphones have similar hardware specifications, Samsung’s software gives the company an important point of difference.

However, if experience is anything to go by, much of the extra software packed in the S4 won’t get used by mainstream owners.

 

Samsung’s iPhone challenge

Samsung invite

Samsung invite

Smartphone battle isn’t Android versus iOS, but Samsung versus Apple.

Tomorrow Apple’s iPhone faces the most serious challenge yet to its smartphone dominance when Samsung takes the wraps off the Galaxy S4. Few specifics are known about the new phone at this stage – although there are plenty of speculative stories online if you want to know what people think the new phone’s specification will be.

Apple’s most recent smartphone, the iPhone 5 remains the recognised market leader. The iPhone brand is better known than any of its rivals. In many markets the iPhone is the top-selling model – although analysts say Samsung outsold Apple globally last year.

Which is why the Galaxy S4 is so important.

Apple pioneered touch screen phones when it launched the first iPhone in 2007. After playing catch-up Samsung proved last year it can innovate as well as Apple. Now it has an opportunity to out-innovate and comprehensively out-sell Apple. That will mark the company’s ascendancy.

The next iPhone isn’t due until around mid-year, which gives Samsung a three-month head start on its rival and increases the pressure on Apple.

Samsung doesn’t have things all its own way. The high end of the smartphone game is close to market saturation. Overall smartphone sales are still growing at around 10% year-on-year but that’s a long way from the 27% growth seen in 2012.

 

 

Could Samsung go vertical?

Would Samsung be more competitive if it was vertical?

Would Samsung be more competitive if it was vertical?

Samsung sells more Android devices than anyone else. The company’s smartphones compete head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone for market share. Samsung also is the leading non-Apple tablet maker.

Samsung is arguably the world’s largest gadget maker – unlike many others it makes a profit.

And yet Samsung has little control over its future direction in the gadget market. That’s because it has to take its lead from Google, which owns Android.

Samsung could take greater control of its destiny if it went vertical. That’s trade jargon for controlling every aspect of its technology including the software controlling its gadgets, services that make the gadgets more useful and the app stores customers use to add functionality to their devices.

This is exactly what Apple does and many believe Apple’s vertical model is behind the company’s success. It means Apple has complete control over the entire customer experience. It differentiates Apple’s products from rival kit and it offers a competitive advantage. Owning all the technology can also be lucrative.

The big question is not whether Samsung has the capability to go vertical – there’s a wealth of talent in the company and much of the technology it needs is already there – but whether it would be a smart strategic move.

What do you think?