The Samsung S III Galaxy is a slate format smartphone that runs on an Android operating system. The designer, developer and marketer of this phone are Samsung Electronics. Samsung Galaxy S III has additional features on software and an expanded hardware system. It has a redesigned physique from its prototype, the Samsung Galaxy S II. The phone employs an intelligent personal assistant, wireless charging options, the eye-tracking ability and an increased storage capacity. The 120 mm smartphone comes with different processors and RAM capacities depending on country of destination. This device was launched with Android 4.0.4 operating system, but it can be updated to Android 4.1(Schwartz, 2012).
The Marketing Trend after the Launch. After one and a half year of the development phase, the Samsung revealed Samsung S III version on May 3rd, 2012, a ceremony held in London. The release of this Smartphone ran in 28 countries in the European market and Middle Eastern countries after three weeks. This was even before another progressive release in other major markets by June the same year. Even before the release, more than 9 million orders had been placed by more than one hundred global courier companies (Sheehan, 2011). More than three hundred carriers released the Smartphone in nearly a hundred and fifty countries by the end of July which realized more than 20 million sales in the first one hundred days of being in the market.
Due to overwhelming demand of the smartphone, the Samsung Company encountered a manufacturing problem with the phone’s blue version. This led to an extensive shortage of the S III phone, especially in the United States markets. Due to the warm welcome in the market, the S III received technology critics by referred as the iPhone killer. This product played an important role in boosting the Samsung company profits during the second and third quarter of 2012. However, as of October, the Galaxy S III was subjected into a high-profile lawsuit between Samsung and Apple
Design of the Smartphone. The design procedure for the Samsung S III begun in late 2010 under the supervision of Samsung’s Vice President who is also the head of the Design Group in Samsung Electronics. From the beginning, the group concentrated on a trend dubbed as “organic” by Samsung Inc. This suggests that the design reflect natural elements like the flow of water and wind. Some of the design results were such things like the phone’s curved outline and its home screen’s “Water Lux” effect, where the taps and slides produce water like ripples. In the design phase, Samsung applied stringent measures in the eighteen months of the design process in order to maintain secrecy until the eventual launch of the product. The company designers worked on a number of prototypes, which ran concurrently regarding each other as a final product. This required a constant duplication of efforts because they had to repeat the same process.
Despite the application of tight security, specifications of one of the three prototype units got leaked by Vietnamese website Tinhte. However, the leaked prototype was not actually the selected design. This leakage led to the speculation of the public and the media personnel about the handset for several months before it was unveiled.
In February 2012, before the Mobile World Congress was held in Barcelona, Spain, rumors were that the phone would incorporate a processor of 1.5 GHz quad-core, a display of 1080p resolution and a 12-megapixel rear camera. However, Samsung confirmed the true existence of the Galaxy S II’s successor, until late April 2012 that Samsung’s Vice-President Robert Yi confirmed the smartphone’s name as “Samsung Galaxy S III”.
Marketing of Samsung S III. The product, Samsung Galaxy S III goes beyond just being smart, but it is also more customers friendly. The customers argue that little things such as staying awake when you look at your loved ones and keep track of them matters. In addition, customers report that the phone makes one enjoy himself and also others value him/her too. In terms of making work easier, galaxy s III rates the best; it plays music and makes more fun for the owner. Despite being inspired by nature, the smartphone combines an attractive appearance with an ergonomic design because it is designed in a user-friendly manner. (Helsinki University of Technology&Herold, Marianna, 2007).
The Smartphone combined the features of the previous versions of Samsung phones and adds other modern features thus making it a high-end phone. What amazes the first time customers is the bright, sharp display, which comes with smart phone. The Smartphone is also among the phones with the best camera and greatest voice quality with effortless applications that are simple to handle (Gookin, 2011).
Samsung Market in the United Arabs Emirates. Samsung electronics co. is solely responsible for the supply and distribution of Samsung products in the Arabian and Middle East markets. The company is a semiconductor telecommunication, digital media and convergence technology. In the year 2009, it consolidated sales of over 100 billion U.S. dollars having employed 188,000 personnel’s in across 165 countries and having more than 185 offices. The company consists of about eight business units operated independently. These business units include the mobile communication, digital appliances, visual display, digital appliances, digital imaging, IT solutions, LCD and the semiconductor. After being recognized as the fastest growing international brands, Samsung electronics also produces memory chips, digital televisions TFT-LCDs on top of mobile phones(Glowik, 2009).
In the year 2012, the company announced to be the leading UAE smartphone marketer with about 31.1% market share in the electronics industry. Samsung managed to achieve a solid growth of 109% growth rate by the third quarter of 2012.this growth can be attributed to high acceptance rate of Samsung products with a successful line of smartphone usage in the country. The company has a record of good performance in other Middle East countries as well. In the gulf, it performed exceptionally well recording over 120 % increase in the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012. The launch of Samsung galaxy s ii and Samsung galaxy s iii, made a significant change in the performance of the company activities. Samsung mobile business that includes tablets and smartphones records 25% of the total sales and market share across the region.
The UAE market is known to be highly competitive because consumers are technologically savvy and have a tendency of adopting technology early before other regions in the world. According to the General Manager of Samsung Gulf Electronics, the market share of his company stood at 17.5% before the introduction of Samsung galaxy products, but rose to 27.5% immediately the smartphones were launched in 2012. In the first quarter of that year, Samsung products received an exceptional response from customers for these new revolutionary mobile devices. The android based tablets also brought a new change in the market for their seamless experience they brought to users through fast performance and high productivity (Hannu, January 01, 2012).
Being the global leader in display technology, Samsung has a strategy of differentiating its products through incorporation of innovative designs and technology elements that deliver concrete value to their customers. According to the business head of visual display of Samsung gulf electronics, many technologies have been incorporated in Samsung products and more are being developed so as to maintain the market leadership position that the company has enjoyed in the last one decade.
Keeping on with the business strategies, Samsung introduced a competitive portfolio of monitors to integrate innovative technologies with the market leaders of picture quality and other unique designs. By shifting the paradigm of monitor industry and to deliver a market leading viewing experience, Samsung introduced the product that go beyond the monitor’s role of the PC in 2012 (Doarn, March 22, 2012). This strategy was one among those aimed at incorporating multimedia solutions completely with the mobility option.
The focus in the year 2012 was focused on further cementation of the brands leadership positioning the display industry by the introduction of new products like Smart Station Monitor and mobile high definition links technology enabled. Such products include Samsung 550 and 750 series LED monitors in the Samsung market.
The Samsung smart station monitor provides an ultimate hub solution to monitors similar to a docking station. Users are able to connect to all devices directly to a smart station monitor using the various connectivity options. They can also control various connected mobile devices with a single mouse and keyboard (Cravens & Piercy, 2006).
The revolutionary mobile high definition link technology monitors enable the user to connect their certified MHL phones to view full High Definition content, web browsing and charging as well as gaming. This application also assist the user to view their mobile content on a 27 inch Samsung series monitor with just a simple press of the dedicated hotkey at the monitors front panel (Chang, 2008).
In conclusion, Social marketing has become the current cost effective route for many organizations to build a relationship with their customers and converse with consumers locally and internationally. Therefore, the concepts and contents of this information must be done in the most relevant and clever way to enhance connectivity with the retail future. In this, Samsung never go behind, they have all their fan pages in all social media websites where millions of customers are served.