Some Reality Behind Samsung Sales Numbers

Ahh the Apple vs Samsung wars, how they rage on in both the courtroom and internet forums of the world. Quite rightly Samsung should be proud of the sales numbers out there but are they all really they make them to be? This Samsung dominance isn’t just down to “better” handsets but to the overall reaching strategy of flooding the shops at any opportunity and then theres the marketing.

To see exactly what’s occurring in the high street I decided to do the most basic of research and see how many Andriod handsets are placed in the high street retailers vs Apple. All this “research” has been done in a few moments like perhaps a traditional consumer would. I.e unsing the basic navigation on the bigger mobile phone shops in the uk and picking out phones via manufacturer searching. This doesn’t take into account any special pages, offers or things tucked away nicely. This is a purely search by manufacturer search.

So looking at things at a glance the number of Samsung Android based handsets available in those most common online stores (here in the UK )

Samsung Units
	Pay Monthly	Pay As You Go	Sim Free Options
Phones4u	20	17	20
Carphonewarehouse	19	15	15

That’s a nice heady combination numbers wise. Especially with PAYG and price plans to suite all areas. Now let’s do the same search, in the same way but concentrating solely on Apple

Apple Handsets
	Pay Monthly	Pay As You Go	Sim Free Options
Phones4u	11	0	0
Carphonewarehouse	9	0	0

Marketing And Promotion

Even when filling up with petrol you can’t escape a Samsung Promotion

This afternoon I was out getting Petrol (not gas, this is a UK site) and on the freaking petrol pump placement was a promotional display for Samsung. All this after John Browett had his ass handed to him from Apple makes me wonder. For anyone wondering what the link is, Browett was on the board of directors at Tesco BEFORE leaving for a “challenge” at Tesco. Fyi, Browett didn’t leave Tesco, the company had a board room shake up and John (apple store destroyer) Browett was asked to leave.

Tesco, the uk’s biggest supermarket, must have some sort of deal doing on because in the post this morning there were bonus points for purchasing a Samsung device. Going into the supermarket there’s just so many incentives to shop Samsung, not just with main tablet lines but the mountain of accessories. They aren’t alone, carphone warehouse goes so far as to re organise one menu to push Samsung accessories. It’s the only menu that’s been rejigged like this.

Blanket tv advertising.

Phones, TV’s, tablets and washing machines are all part of the product portfolio. This has an impact on the customer psyche. Familiarity strikes shoppers at the best of times. Ever been into a shop and saw 2 products similar to one another but went branded because you “know” of them. Samsung is no different and you can imagine sales figures reflect this familiarity.

In their rush to market some of the fit and finish is missing. Yes it’s great that all products are sold with offers end up being deliberated over to see who has the best offer, not necessarily the best price or a combination of them both.

TV adverts are the worst culprit of a seemingly “rush to get out there” mentality. At the end of the advert the main advert fades to black, Samsung pops up with their jingle but it feels tacked on, like someone in a board room said “hey we should do what intel does at the end of their adds” At least intel let the end of their adverts breathe a bit, without it feeling like a poor copy and paste end ident.

So if you take into account the amount of products, marketing and offers coming of retailers, are those sales number really a surprise?

Now Samsung, lets see some transparency that people judge Apple on.