I found one marketing blog about Samsung’s extensive marketing beyond smartphones, written by my comm 296 fellow classmates,Claire Choi, interesting and inspring. She summarizes the underlying reason why Samsung chooses to create products beyond smart phones rather than stay focused like Apple does. She reports that Samsung distracts ifself with housng appliances,such as wifi-equipped washing machines that can be controlled by a smart phone app. Then she analyses the benefits brought by this decision: Samsung captures the protential customers’ needs for smart housing appliances; using the platfrom already built when promoting their smart phones, Samsung incerase its breadth while taking advantage of the economic of scale.
Actually, Samsung captures the potential consumers in China using its technology innovation and creating specific products for this target market, such as air purifier. In other parts of the global market, Samsung takes fully advantage of the recent success of its smartphones, which enables it to accumulate the consumer loyalty and credibility in the electronice device market. The company dosen’t hesitate to invest in its marketing budget to make widespread promotions compared to its competitors, and in response， “Samsung’s share of the US market for major home appliances in dollar terms has surged to 10.5% in this year’s second quarter from just 2.3% five years earlier.”
samsung’s smart home concept
I always wonder why Samsung is willing to dilute its brand and to broaden its product line except for the reason that those products can bring some limited profits. Claire’s blog gives me a general direction to think about the underlying reasons and accompanying benefits: Samsung will not satisfied by only smart phones, it aims to create a world where people allow view smart home appliances as necessary as smart phones; it not only realizes consumers’ needs but also creates a new need for them. Also, the home appliances along with the smart phones create an integrated product bundle for the consumers through various kinds of apps, which make consumers to see the decision to buy Samsung’s home appliances easier and worthier.