What are you guys' thoughts on this opinion article from SamMobile? It made some pretty good points....
Posted by DannyD on 25 June 2013 at 17:53
[h1]Samsung lost value on GALAXY S brand, premium line a must![/h1]
Follow: COLUMNSColumns Galaxy S4 Galaxy S4 Active Galaxy S4 mini Galaxy S4 Zoom
Since the launch of the first GALAXY S device, Samsung’s smartphone sales have been growing.The success of their own GALAXY S line is so massive, that customers have decided to drop other brands in favour of anything with “Galaxy” written on it. Even other high value brands like Apple are in trouble thanks to Samsung’s innovation and, arguably, their marketing. Samsung’s reputation of their GALAXY line-up is actually great: the marketing worked out in the right direction and sales have steadily increased. Unfortunately, however, this year: Samsung completely failed. The first issue was the early release of the Galaxy S4 and then so many S4 variants, despite the fact that the Galaxy SIII was (and is) still a flagship device with very similar design language.
Now let’s start with the first,
early release of the GALAXY S4. Samsung announced the GALAXY S4 in March 2013. The device went on sale from the end of April. The GALAXY S4 was announced to contend with flagship devices, the HTC One and Sony Experia Z. This could be a good thing, but alas, the device itself wasn’t a big upgrade
to
the still perfectly adequate GALAXY SIII, which was still very popular at the time. The GALAXY S4 isn’t a real follow-up from the GALAXY SIII, more like a redesigned software update. The only big differences between the GALAXY S4 and GALAXY SIII are the display and the camera, something that normal customers wouldn’t care about that much, and that’s all, so now they have to stop the production of the perfectly good GALAXY SIII to sell GALAXY S4 devices. The price of the GALAXY S4 much, much higher. In the current economic crises there isn’t any good reason to buy the GALAXY S4 instead of the GALAXY SIII. Now this isn’t everything. The Samsung GALAXY S4 uses the same kind of
design language, which make the device look boring – it doesn’t look unique. If customers are paying extra for a supposedly better device, then they want it to look different, and stand out, right? Samsung completely failed with the premium feeling! Competitors of Samsung released devices with an aluminium back or at the very least a better premium feeling in the hand. Samsung’s other problem is that there are too many
GALAXY S4 variants. The unique name of the GALAXY S has lost all of its value. Samsung calls every single new high-end device a GALAXY S device, even though initially this was reserved for its flagship range. Samsung announced the GALAXY S4 Active, GALAXY S4 mini and GALAXY S4 Zoom. This really confuses the market. Especially with leaked news that they will likely bring out another, faster version of the Galaxy S4 later this year. In other words Samsung just killed their own
unique GALAXY S brand and their flagship product.
The last problem is that Samsung develops to many devices since 2012. There is completely no reason to buy new Samsung devices besides of the name of every GALAXY product. All Samsung devices are looking the same, they can do the same and only after 3 months feels the device old cause Samsung announced something better!
We hope Samsung keeps the name of the GALAXY NOTE brand unique. Samsung currently announce every year only one smartphone with GALAXY NOTE features. According to many GALAXY NOTE owners is this the way to keep the buying new GALAXY NOTE products besides of better specifications.
Samsung, please, never announce product which is better than your own one year old flagship device! The unique brand of the GALAXY S has lost its value. This is a sign of weakness to all Samsung GALAXY S owners. In future, make it better in terms of specification and worth the upgrade to buy it for next year. But never announce an ‘updated’ version to kill your own trusted GALAXY S brand value. Secondly please stop calling every new high-range GALAXY device a GALAXY S device. Perhaps this is a marketing ploy to ride on the back of the GALAXY S success, but all you are doing is confusing consumers, angering purchasers of your true flagship devices and diluting the marketplace.
We believe that customers would love to buy every new flagship device by Samsung, but only if customers have the faith in Samsung that they have something truly unique, for at least a year, especially now that Samsung announces 2 flagship devices on Android each year!
Samsung, look, the GALAXY S4 project failed. There was less in innovation and almost nothing unique to pay for. If you need to wait for 2 months to get better hardware, then you should wait for it! Don’t release a half product especially when your older flagship device is still selling so well and popular in the marketplace.
The GALAXY S4 shows a sign of weakness!
Bring back that unique and premium line we saw you start with the GALAXY SII and GALAXY SIII and remember if your flagship device fails in terms of specification and design. It’s all very well having a natural evolution – but it be considered evolution, it must evolve into something better!
Make it worthwhile for customers to buy the GALAXY S for next year!