Introduction
Samsung is a South Korean company founded in March 1938. Initially Samsung was in the trading line that sells food products to nearby countries. Overtime Samsung have become one of the leading electronics company in the world. Samsung has been constantly expanding their product variation allowing their market share value and revenue to be one of the top of the global scale. Samsung’s wide variation of products requires a vest amount of different marketing strategies. Their success in the global market is also well recognized.
Target Market
Samsung’s targets a very wide range of consumers ranging from normal day to day usage devices to industrial standard equipment. The usual target age group of customers range from the 20s to 50s or even older, as long as the person has the ability to purchase and use the products that Samsung has to offer in the market.
- Teenagers to early adults (age 14 – 25) – This age group of Samsung product consumers is usually Samsung’s smartphone target customers as they are mostly technology savvy. This group of customers is growing as Samsung saw that this group has more spending power in recent years compared to in the past.
- Adults (age 26 – 50) – This specific group of targets the largest portion of Samsung’s target market as this is the group of consumers that have the most ability to purchase any of the product Samsung has to offer in the market be it smartphones, smart television, cameras or any other household products like vacuum cleaners or washing machines. This portion of customers will continue to grow in the years to come.
SWOT Analysis
Strength
Definition
Internal attributes and/or resources of the company that gives it the advantage over other companies.
– Innovation and design
– Low cost production
– Focus on environment
– Large market share
– Hardware integration with many open source OS and software
– Customer loyalty
– Good industrial standards
– Strong inventory management
Weaknesses
Definition
Internal attributes and/or resources of the company that work against or place the company at a disadvantage of other competitors.
– Samsung lacks its own OS / software
– Focuses on too many variation of products
– No focus on one core competency product
– Very strong competitors (Eg: Apple)
– Samsung has a low profit margin
– Products may be deemed as not user friendly at times
Opportunity
Definition
External factors that the company can capitalize on or use for its advantage over others.
– Raising Smartphone Market
– Increasing portable promoting industry
– Growing interest for quality requisition processors
– Evolution of tablets business
– Gaining patents through acquisitions
Threat
Definition
External factors that could potentially jeopardize or cause the company to be at a disadvantage over other competition.
– Slow market in developed countries for smartphones
– Rapid change in technology
– Increasing Competition
– Breached patents
– Apple’s iTV launch
– Declining margins in hardware production
Increasing Competition in Smartphones
Manufacturing of smartphones are now much easier than ever as more companies are seen entering the market and markets are becoming saturated. People are switching to smartphones to connect to the internet in developing countries. Smartphones are becoming important to connect people to the web as fixed-line telephone networks are often weak in emerging markets and building new ones is expensive.
China, the world’s largest smartphone market now, as well as fast-growing markets of India and Brazil, local smartphone makers in these emerging markets could become a threat over market leaders Samsung and Apple with their low-cost decent smartphones. Recent news on Xiaomi, a Beijing-based company, designs its phones with high-end specifications and sells them at midrange prices. Though Xiaomi smartphones is still inferior to iPhone or the Galaxy in terms of quality, but the company beats them on price, a significant factor for many consumers in China. On top of that, other smartphone makers like China’s Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo and India’s Micromax and Karbonn, are offering those features on their smart phones at a price local populations can afford.
There is nothing in the existing technologies of Samsung or Apple that cannot be matched by other companies, thus Samsung may need to create phones that are cheap but capture the aspirations and imagination of users in emerging markets to compete on cost.
Innovation and design
Samsung, the largest brand in South Korea and it is also multinational company which diversified business under name of Samsung such as Samsung electronics, Samsung heavy industries and Samsung heavy construction. Samsung from producing black white TV as their sole purpose transform to a world reputable high technology corporation nowadays, Samsung was making a lot of right in innovative their products .Samsung increasing their investment in R&D such as R&D globalization and products design. 16 R&D center was established by 2004 to improve their products design and their existing technologies and Average of 9% of revenue was spent on R&D in the year between 2002 and 2007. Samsung put their efforts to create new and better design and products, this has been brought Samsung to win many awards and get 17,377 patents worldwide. To balance between feelings and reason, Samsung’s philosophy is using geometric and technological parameters and enhancing the design so the user can be emotional connection with its product.
Samsung has such as good results in innovation and design because of their co-operation have a team of creative, knowledgeable and experiences people to contribute in the development of technology and Samsung aims to satisfy more consumers with its products and services.
PEST Analysis
Political (Legal issues)
– Samsung faced several patent lawsuits issues in the smartphone industry in recent years
– Samsung protects their intellectual properties by suing competitors and claiming infringements rights on patents design and ideas
Economic
– Samsung is the top dealer of android smartphones
Social
– aging demographic
– gender
– for business or personal usage
– life style
– population growth rate
Technology
– World-class cutting-edge technologies across industries, including in IT, semiconductor, telecommunications and imaging.
– Samsung launched phones with HD sensitive touchscreen.
– expanding its market leadership in the memory business by demonstrating superior technology and dramatic cost savings.
– Leading innovation in electronic devices with competitive R&D and trailblazing process technology.
– Continuous eco-friendly, next-generation technology excellence and leadership in light sources in the LED industry
– Advanced pixel technology Isocell in premium mobile devices brings clearer and higher-quality pictures.
Social culture
Singapore with a population about 5.4million in 2013, increase 0.9% from the year 2010. Singapore is the 25th quality city globally, has a highest quality of living in Asia. (Mercer, 2013) Singaporean are living in a better economic condition in term of living lifestyle and GDP comparing with neighboring countries. Singapore has brisk experiences in trading condition of retail sector all year round. With an increase in expendable income, household income, and great retail promotion, therefore, people will spend on luxury items, automotive and household items, such as furniture, electronic and so on. This has been attracted a lot of branded companies to set up their business in Singapore such as Samsung. Through the household expenditure survey 2007/08 by singstat, with almost 99% of household had at least one television set and refrigerator, and also with the rising of standard of living, household appliances such as microwave oven, air conditioner and washing machines have steadily increase to reach 61%, 75% and 95%. Furthermore, for the convenience of mobile phones, the proportion of household with a mobile phone has increase sharply from 7% in the year of 1992/93 to 95% in the year 2007/08. Besides that, in this era of advanced information technology, all sort are in the fingertips, personal computer and internet are not an exception. As the result, both of these have also become common.