Samsung strategy

Questions

1. Find the latest figures about the mobile phone market

We can start by see the market share of smartphone in different country like:

In France :

In USA :

In China :

We see that Apple is far from being the leader in all countries, especially in emerging countries. Some countries like the United States have distributions very balanced.
Finally, the global distribution is represented through this graph:

(source : http://blog.artenet.fr/2011/03/14/part-de-marche-des-smartphones-2011/ )

With more details:

So according to research firm IDC, the global mobile phone market ballooned in the first quarter of this year, growing 19.8 percent year-over-year, mostly due to the meteoric rise of smartphone shipments, especially in emerging markets. According to the firm’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 371.8 million units in Q1 2011 compared to 310.5 million units in the first quarter of 2010.

In the United States, Apple’s iPhone and HTC Thunderbolt were two devices (introduced at Verizon Wireless) that helped keep the smartphone category front and center of the overall mobile phone market last quarter. BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android devices were best sellers, says IDC, and the same trend is visible in Canada.

In Western Europe, Android-based phones and iPhones helped grow the market in the seasonally slow quarter. New devices from HTC, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson sold well in most countries in the high-end tiers.

Finally, we can note than Samsung is the second in 2011 behind Nokia but before Apple !

2. What is the strategic goal of Samsung

With is new decade “Inspire the World, Create the Future”, we can guess that the strategic goal of Samsung is to impose the brand in the future with the image of an innovative society, to be recognize like a modern brand.
Indeed Samsung has mapped out a specific plan to become one of the world’s top five brands in 2020 (for that Samsung brought together $400 billion in revenue).

Clearly, Samsung wants to make part of Future and one of the strategic goal is to being a creative leader in new market, becoming a n°1 business going forward, by inserting themselves in new markets like health, medicine, biotechnology…

Also Samsung established three strategic approaches in its management: “Creativity”, “Partnership”, and “Talent”. With these approaches, Samsung wants to evidence new value like make the world better for all and rank as pleasant company, which considers its employees.

3. After your research, how can you explain the success of Samsung?

We can explain the success of Samsung by his understanding and consideration of market trends and consumer expectations.

First, the company realized that to be on top in the market you must be an innovative company to reinvent itself every day. Above all, do not stay on its laurels and always take the lead. Otherwise it becomes outdated. And for a brand who sell new technology like smartphone etc. it really important to have the trust of consumers. If you’re outdated, who will give you his trust? Nobody!

Being at the forefront of technology you get ahead in the world by anticipating ever-changing expectations of consumers. Corporate competitiveness, in the era of global competition, begins from understanding its costumers – knowing who they are, whant they whant, and how they are changing.

Then, we can explain the success of Samsung by his omnipresence in own world, like it say in the article “in the hustle, of the streets or the comfort of the home… Samsung is part of the fabric of your life”. In fact, Samsung is everywhere, with the publicity for example (TV, billboard…) but thanks to his variety of products too! How can you miss a brand if it is present in the electronics industry, as in machinery & heavy industry or in financial services?