Samsung have just announced a simply vast marketing budget for this year. The $14 billion that the hugely successful technology firm will spend on marketing this year is so huge that it is more than the entire GDP of Iceland. But with Apple having recently been named the world’s top brand, can such a vast expenditure usurp the producer of the iPhone and establish Samsung as the world’s number one electronics firm?
It was only days ago that Apple was named by the influential economics magazine Forbes as the world’s most valuable brand. This concurred with the assessment of the Interbrand list which was released earlier this year, in which Apple had usurped Coca-Cola at the very head of the pack. However, there was good news for Samsung in both of these surveys as well. The Korean electronics manufacturer was rated by the Interbrand list as the world’s eighth most recognisable brand, while Forbes rate the company as the world’s ninth most valuable brand.
In addition, Forbes also noted that Samsung had the strongest one-year gain of any brand in the top 100, which had increased by over 50% to $29.5 billion. The company’s value has soared by a massive 136% over the past three years, indicative of the rapid rise of Samsung. This has been driven by huge sales for the Samsung Galaxy S4, while the standing of the company with regard to the sale of memory chips also greatly assists their market value.
The Galaxy had greatly closed the gap on the Apple iPhone, still the market leader, until the release of the mammoth success that is the iPhone 5. This new Apple device has blown away all previous records for the sales of smartphones, shifting nearly 100 million units in 2013 alone (and, indeed, it may break through this unheralded barrier over Christmas). Sales of the S4 have remained steady, and Samsung have established themselves as a clear contender to Apple, but they have certainly yet to equal their achievements.
It is evident that this huge marketing push is to intended to presage the release of the Samsung Galaxy S5, which is expected to see an early 2014 release. Many people believe that Samsung’s devices are equally as good, or even better, than those of Apple, with the specs of the Galaxy certainly comparable, and in some areas superior.
What they haven’t been able to do yet is match the design genius, cachet and street cred that Apple have built up expertly. There is still the tangible feeling that Samsung is a less glamorous competitor to Apple. Whether or not one agrees with this, and whether or not it is remotely based in reality, the fact remains that this factor is the most important in the fashion-conscious electronics industry. Thus, if Samsung are to ever compete with Apple, they need to close the gap in branding.
While the evidence is that this process has begun, and the company clearly has ambitious plans for the future, don’t expect it to be achieved just yet.
Christopher Morris has wasted almost his entire life playing video games, right back to the original Space Invaders, and is a regular contributor to Yahoo on television, cinema, video games, technology and politics.
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