How Samsung went from No 1 to also-ran in China’s smartphone market - and can it bounce back?
Once the No 1 brand in China, Samsung has ceded most of its market share to fast-growing Chinese rivals that have been able to quickly meet consumer demands in the world’s biggest smartphone market
Considering it held 20 per cent five years ago, it has been a stunning fall from grace for the Korean electronics giant, with analysts pinning that on its failure to localise its products to satisfy demands of Chinese consumers.
Other factors, including the Galaxy Note 7 exploding battery recall of October 2016, the rapid rise of intensely competitive local Chinese brands, and political fall out from a spat between Seoul and Beijing, also conspired to bring it down in China.
In a bid to regain some of the lost ground, Samsung has engaged two of China’s most popular young actors, Zhu Yawen and Jing Boran, as celebrity endorsers for the new Galaxy S9 model announced on Sunday at the World Mobile Conference in Barcelona.
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“The poor performance of Samsung in China derives from the fact that it couldn’t keep pace with Chinese customers’ requirements and at the same time domestic players were being proactive to satisfy user demands,” said James Yan, Beijing-based research director at Counterpoint Technology.