Samsung Market Research

Marketing information is everyday information about developments in the marketing environment that managers use to prepare and adjusts marketing plans.

Customer Relationship Management System

1. Identify customer relationship
2. Understand interactions with current customer base
3. Capture customer data based on interactions
4. Store and integrate customer data using information technology
5. Identify best customers
6. Leverage customers information

Samsung identify their customer relationship base on the type of people that purchase their products. Samsung galaxy products are sold worldwide so they know that they have to be universal when making  new products. Like any major company Samsung does surveys to help identify better on what their customers would want in the future. With each new galaxy phones they have put out, they have not disappointed their customers. Although, the physical aspect changes slightly, the features and application changes on every phone getting more advance with each phone. It plays a significant role in their customer relationship because they offer more advance options than any other smart phone. Affordability also contributes to their customer relationship because customers know that they are getting a great product at a great price.

Samsung S5 Concept Phone

 

 



Samsung Segmenting and Targeting Markets

Samsung Bases for Segmenting Consumer Market

Geographic Segmentation

Samsung geographic segmentation is world wide, they sell their phones in 61 different countries. They make slight variations in languages and applications but the physical appearance of their phones is universal. 

Demographic Segmentation

• Age Segmentation : Their target age segmentation is teens,young adults and adults in early and mid 30's.
• Income Segmentation : Their target income segmentation is middle class and high class income.
• Ethnic Segmentation : Since Samsung sells world wide, they don't have a specific ethic segmentation. 
• Family Life Cycle Segmentation : Their target family life cycle is young single, young married or divorced with or without children.
• Gender Segmentation : Smartphones are not gender specific but since women shop more than men I would assume they have more women buying their phones than men.

Psycho graphic Segmentation
Samsung psycho graphic segmentation includes individuals from teens to mid 30's who like new technology, tech savvy and can afford to buy it.

Benefit Segmentation
When Samsung customers buy their phones the benefit they expect from it is simple appearance, new and updated features and reasonably priced.

Usage- Rate Segmentation

The smartphones market has a lot of heavy users because of the convenience of it, you can call, text, send pictures, play games, listen to music and surf the web all from a smartphone. Samsung as a large percentage of heavy users who buys all of their latest phones and with mobile service company offering upgrade plans it makes it easier to get the newest phones.There are people who goes from one smartphone brand like Apple to Samsung because they tired of it or they want to try another smartphone.

Samsung Developing and Managing Products

Product Life Cycle is a concept that provides a way to trace the stages of product's acceptance, from its introduction to  its decline.

Samsung Galaxy Introductory Stage
Samsung used aggressive advertising to introduce their Galaxy products, they spend 401 million dollars in 2012 on advertising.

Samsung Galaxy Growth Stage
Galaxy phones are in its growth stage because despite the crowded market of smartphones Galaxy phones offers a lot of features like Air View, Smart Scroll, Smart Pause and Watch On their competitors don't offer at a reasonable price.

Samsung Galaxy Maturity Stage
Smartphone market is definitely crowded, everyone has one. In next 5 years smartphones will reach its maturity stage.

Samsung Galaxy Decline Stage
Society will get tired of smartphones like it did with flip and bulky phones. At that point a new upgrade in cellular technology will come out declining the smartphone market. I believe in the next 10 years or less that will happen.

Samsung Social Media and Marketing

Samsung uses social media just like any every big name company to promote their products. Samsung has a Facebook page with over 29 million likes, a Twitter page with over 6 million followers and a Vine page. They include pictures, videos, description and details of their products from their phones, televisions to their computers.

 Social media is a very powerful, influential and efficient marketing tool, people have a lot access to internet and social media because of smartphones.And so since creating a page on these social media sites are free, it basically free advertising. But for their advertisement to show up on other people page they have to pay. Last year alone Samsung spend over 4.3 billion dollars on advertising which is definitely one of the reasons why they are the top manufacturer of smartphones worldwide.

Samsung Product Concept

Samsung offers a variety of products from televisions to tablets which would be consider the product mix width, but the products I been talking about through out the blog has been their cell phones, specifically their Galaxy phones which would be consider the product mix depth.

Their Galaxy phones is an example of a product line, they are very similar in looks and operating system but each phone has different update of the operating system and features. Each year Samsung make changes to their Galaxy phones and that is called product modification.

Galaxy would be considered a homogeneous shopping products because there are other smart phones in the market but Galaxy has its features that make it different.

Samsung brand is definitely is known throughout the whole world. Customers know that Samsung products are affordable as well as efficient and they know its money well spent.

Samsung Personal Selling and Sales Management

Samsung uses advertising of the features and looks of their Galaxy products "Look Pretty" and use price as sales promotion.
Traditional personal  selling is a method that is use to persuade a buyer to purchase a product or service and Samsung uses this method to sell their Galaxy products because they come out with  new Galaxy products every year, so they are consistently persuading customers to buy their latest product.

Samsung Galaxy S1 2010

Samsung Galaxy S2
2011

Samsung Galaxy S3 2012

Samsung Galaxy S4 2013

Samsung doesn't discount their products because one of their strength is their product being affordable, but the cell phone service company they sell their product uses  personal selling when they offer discounted prices and zero dollar down plans.
 Samsung latest product is Samsung Gear and it is an example of a cross-selling product because it is compatible with Samsung Galaxy phones, meaning in order to get the full benefit of both you have to purchase them both.

 A goal that Samsung set for 2013 is to sell 500 million devices, last year they approximately sold  420 million devices.

Samsung Advertising, Public Relations, and Sales Promotion

Samsung uses product advertising to help increase their sales.Samsung promote their products  by television commercials, advertising on the trains, billboards, online, ads in the movie theaters, etc. 

Every year Samsung find a way to make their product a little bit better and interactive than their competitors, one of these upgrades include them teaming up with a global health service company called Cigna to put out a new application called S Health.The purpose of this is to focus on delivering health-related tips and articles to people with Galaxy phones  and connecting them with caregivers, doctors and hospitals to improve health and wellness worldwide.They release the application on the  Galaxy Note 3 in a few countries, including United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain on October 2013 and over the next year they plan on adding the service to all of their Galaxy phones worldwide.
 
As being apart of the smart phone market, as a way of sales promotion Samsung and the mobile communications company may organize a limited time plan for consumers where they can pay a really low price or sometimes even nothing for the phone up front but they have to pay a certain amount that is added to their bill, which is a smart way to get rid of merchandise quickly.

Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) Retailing

H&M was founded in Västerås, Sweden in 1947, it's a chain store that is located worldwide. It's a specialty store that focus on fast affordable chic fashion for women, men and children. H&M has 2,629 stores in 43 countries, it is ranked second largest global retailer. It's retailing mix will talk about the reason why it's so successful.

PLACE  
This is the H&M on 5th avenue in New York City. It is located in the dead heart of fashion shopping life in NYC and there are tons of foot traffic from New Yorkers and tourists everyday.


PROMOTION
H&M uses video advertisements, print advertisements and e-marketing as their promotion strategy. When they want to get rid of old inventory they have a great clearance red tag sale where items are  $ 5,10,15,20. 

PRODUCT
H&M sell a range of apparel like lingeries, swimsuits, cardigans, pants, skirts, tops as well as men and kids apparel. They also have shoes, jewerly and accessories.
PRESENTATION
The layout of H&M stores are chic, sleek, glass, contemporary and modern designs. When you walk into any of their stores it screams high fashion, from the clothes, register, fitting rooms, shelves to the mannequin.


PRICE
H&M focus is delivering high fashion clothing at affordable prices that one of the major reason they are so successful, everyone can afford their clothing so they have a much broader clientele.                        

PERSONNEL
In H&M the staff are always around folding, hanging clothes. You can identify they by their H&M name tag, they always have the store clothes on so they also help marketing the company's clothing. They also give great fashion tip and advice on an outfit.

Samsung Consumer Decision Making

As you saw in the last blog that people prefer Samsung Galaxy phones over any other phone brand and here are a couple of reasons why.


1) Galaxy phones are reasonably priced
2) Their latest phone Galaxy S4 has really cool features like:

• Air View: lets you flip through your photos and get a preview of each shot just by hovering your finger over the picture.
• Watch-On:  which let you work the phone like a universal remote.
• Smart Scroll: Automatically scrolls the page for you, so you can read even if your hands are full.
• Smart Pause: Automatically stop playing a video when you turn your face away from the phone.

Consumers always want the latest in whatever products they buy and with the technology Samsung puts out they are is able to give them that, so that people buy their products and has made them the #1 company in the smartphone market. 

Samsung Global Vision

Samsung has globally marketed it's brand to countries such as United States, China, United Kingdom, Euroupean Union and 57 other countries.

Samsung is in the lead on the global cellphone market responsible for nearly 28 percent of all cellphones shipped during the second quarter of 2013. Samsung shipped 107 million cellphones that quarter.That was the company fastest growth in a year, growing 4 percent annually to reach 386 million cellphones. A lot of that growth was caused by demand for Android cellphones in Asia and Latin America.

Samsung would be consider a global marketing standardization because they sell same mobile devices all around the world, with variation in colors and language. 

Samsung Marketing Environment

Samsung work in the most competitive markets of the world. About 67 new Smartphones are introduced every year. Samsung has a steady image that focused on low price phones for the lower end of the market. To break into the upper-market Samsung has to give up their low market position and focus on creating a higher brand value.

 DEMOGRAPHIC:

Samsung offers phones for youth, age of 16-29, for businessmen, middle class youth government lower class workers.  Samsung Galaxy is a good option for youth because it has many attractive features as Wi-Fi, 3G. 

TARGETING:

 Samsung target market are the following customers:

• Trendy young people. 
• Professionals.
• Large businesses.
• The everyday cellphone users.
• Public safety
• The government.
• Utility and manufacturing enterprises.

 Samsung biggest global competitor right now is Apple Inc.

Samsung Ethics

As a global company with about 160,000 employees  in 61 countries worldwide, Samsung  is fully dedicated to following  local laws and regulations as well as applying a strict global code of conduct to all employees.  Samsung has a goal to become one of the most ethical companies in the world that is respected by its shareholders, Samsung continues to train its employees and operate monitoring systems, while practicing fair and

transparent corporate management.

Values & Code of Conduct

 Samsung has these global code of conduct called" Five Samsung Business Principles" that they came out with in 2005.

Samsung Electronics Global Code of Conduct

Principle 1.

• We comply with all laws and ethical standards.

•  We respect the dignity and diversity of individuals.
• We compete in accordance with the law and
• business ethics.
• We maintain transparency of accounts with
• accurate recording of transactions.
• We do not get involved in politics and maintain
• neutrality.
• We protect information on individuals and business partners.

Principle 2.

• We maintain a clean organizational culture.
•  We make a strict distinction between public and private affairs in our duties.
•  We protect and respect the intellectual properties of the company and others.
•  We create a sound organizational atmosphere.
•  We maintain the dignity of Samsung Electronics in our external activities.

Principle 3.

• We respect customers, shareholders and employees.
•  We put priority on customer satisfaction in management activities.
• We pursue management focused on shareholder value.
•  We endeavor to improve our employees’ quality of life.

Principle 4.

• We care for the environment, health, and safety.
•  We pursue environment friendly management.
•  We value the health and safety of human beings.

Principle 5.

• We are a socially responsible corporate citizen.
•  We sincerely execute our basic responsibilities as a corporate citizen.
•  We respect the social and cultural values of local
• communities and practice prosperous co- existence.
• We build relationships of co-existence and co- prosperity with our business partners.

Samsung Strategic Plan

Samsung’s profits from mobile devices have gone down by 13%, which has led to the investors getting a bit anxious. They feel that the sector that  Samsung earned  most of its profits, the high-end smart phone market, is now becoming over flooded. Based on this, Samsung plans to meet with about 400 analysts and investors in Seoul this November for discussing its strategy for growth in the long term.

SWOT

 STRENGTHS

1. Hardware integration with many open source OS and software
2. Excellence in engineering and producing hardware parts and consumer electronics
3. Innovation and design
4. Focus on environment
5. Low production costs
6. Largest share in mobile phones and 2 place in smartphones sales
7. Ability to market the brand

WEAKNESS

1. Patent infringement
2. Low profit margin
3. Main competitors are also large buyers
4. Lack its own OS and software
5. Focus on too many products

OPPORTUNITIES

1. Growing India’s smartphone market
2. Growing mobile advertising industry
3. Growing demand for quality application processors
4. Growth of tablets market
5. Obtaining patents through acquisitions

THREATS

1. Crowded smartphone markets in developed countries
2. Fast technological change
3. Failing margins on hardware production
4. Breached patents
5. Apple’s iTV launch
6. Price wars

COST COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
 Samsung is able to bring products to the market more quickly than Apple because it controls the entire manufacturing process for its smartphones. Samsung makes everything from chips to screens at its own factories, allowing it to change designs and produce new products at a quick pace.

PRODUCT STRATEGIES

As the release of Microsoft’s new Surface tablets approaches, more information regarding these is becoming available. Microsoft has already cut prices of Surface models from 2012 as well as those of the touch cover; however, according to new information, the next versions of the Surface tablet will come with another type of cover along with the Type and Touch covers. According to rumors, this could be the Power Cover, which as the name suggests, should house an extra battery in order to extend the battery life of the tablet.

PLACE STRATEGIES

Samsung says Nigeria,  plays a critical role in its global business strategy. Emmanouil Revmatas, Business Head, Hand Held Products at Samsung in Nigeria made a remark that the huge potentials there makes the country a strategic market for Samsung. Reports have shown that about 30 million smartphones will be sold in Nigeria between now and 2015.

PROMOTION STRATEGIES

Samsung region in Africa  joined in a joint marketing initiative so that they can drive up sales and increase its local market performance.  As part of the strategy regional retailers Nakumatt Holdings have  plans to double their share of Samsung Consumer Electronics products sales through a series of joint marketing promotion initiatives. Just six months from its recent position as a regional franchisee and approved importer for the full range of Samsung Consumer Electronic products, Nakumatt has managed to grow its share by more than 50% in less than six months.



PRICING STRATEGIES

Samsung’s strategy for selling gadgets is Release lots and lots and lots and lots of them and see which ones consumers will buy. The Next Web an online blog  points out that while Samsung’s gadget spam strategy has helped it sell a huge amount of smartphones and tablets in China, it hasn’t necessarily been helping with the company’s bottom line. In fact, they said that Samsung’s percentage of revenues that come from China has actually decreased over the years, which reflects the really competitive Chinese smartphone market.







SAMSUNG MISSION STATEMENT  
"We will devote our human resources and technology to create superior products and services, thereby contributing to a better global society."

SAMSUNG HISTORY

From its inception as a small export business in Taegu, Korea, Samsung has grown to become one of the world's leading electronics companies, specializing in digital appliances and media, semiconductors, memory, and system integration. Today Samsung's innovative and top quality products and processes are world recognized. This timeline captures the major milestones in Samsung's history, showing how the company expanded its product lines and reach, grew its revenue and market share, and has followed its mission of making life better for consumers around the world.
In the 1970s, Samsung laid the strategic foundations for its future growth by investing in the heavy, chemical, and petrochemical industries. During this time, the company also took steps to enhance its competitive position in the world's textile industry, integrating its manufacturing processes from raw materials to end products. As a result, many new companies were created, including Samsung Heavy Industries Company in 1974 and Samsung Shipbuilding and Samsung Precision Company (now Samsung Techwin) in 1977. Another burst of growth for Samsung came from the burgeoning home electronics business. Samsung Electronics, already a major manufacturer in the Korean market, began to export its products for the first time during this period. Samsung's also acquired a 50 percent stake in Korea Semiconductor, further solidifying Samsung Electronics' position as a leader in semiconductor manufacturing.