Friday, October 14, 2011

Why Samsung is Rocking the PC and Tablet US Markets!

Updated November 1, 2011
Samsung is taking no prisoners in the US Notebook PC and Tablet Market. Samsung started testing the waters a few years ago with notebook computers and although they were reliable, they were nothing to write home about style and feature wise. Today, that has all changed. Much in the same way Hyundai has taken the US subcompact and compact and premium upscale large sedan segment with their newly styled Elantra, Sonata,Genesis and Equus Samsung has pulled all the stops out in taking the leadership position in the US when it comes to notebook and tablet computers.


A little background on Samsung. Samsung is a huge Korean technology conglomerate that is in of itself a world class innovator and manufacturer of PC computer components including flash memory, memory chips, LED and LCD displays and a whole host of semiconductor and micro electronics products that are marketed and sold worldwide. Sony decided back in 2003 to form an LCD manufacturing partnership with Samsung to reduce their capital expenditures. This solidified Samsung's leadership position with manufacturing flat panel screens  They are also a leading supplier of these components to to other computer manufacturers. They manufacture world class SSD hard drives and conventional spinning hard disks, DRAM memory and SODIMM memory simms and are one of the largest and most innovative flat panel LED manufacturers in  the world with OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) bleeding edge technology that has appeared in their line of Samsung Android smartphones and consumer digital cameras. They have also been selling LCD and LED televisions within the US for some time now and have gotten rave reviews from technology and consumer magazines. Ditto their extensive line of appliances (Refrigerators, Dishwashers, Vacuum Cleaners Ranges, etc). They even manufacture washing machines under the Sears Kenmore brand name. Most all of their appliances are extremely reliable and are class leaders wen it comes to efficiency design and price performance...read value for the money. They are taking that same formula and are applying it big time to their current and future line of notebooks and tablets.

Samsung introduced their line of Q notebooks which were some of the first thin and powerful 13, 14 and 15 inch notebooks that had glass covering the LED displays for enhanced color and sharpness and wider viewing angles. They also came out with ultra bright (400 nit LED displays) for their Series 9 11.6 and 13.3 notebooks which are the first real alternatives to the Apple Mac Book Air thin notebook computers. Offering more features for the money, these Series 9 notebooks were every bit as sexy as the MacBook Air but offered more features like an SD slot and more standard USB ports. Battery life is comparable and they are one of the best selling lines of Samsung Notebooks in the consumer and the business market segments.

Samsung also announced and quietly started shipping their value line of thin notebooks called the Series 3 or Princeton family of notebooks. With super aggressively low pricing they were able to sell a ton of the Series 3 Princeton 11.6" Core i3 Notebooks just in time for the September back to school season. They wisely partnered and sold the notebook at a low price $599.00 through Staples and the price has dipped through newer Staples sales promotions to an unheard of price of $350.00. Yes you heard that correctly. Samsung is dead serious about dominating the US market for notebook computers.

When it comes to value or price performance, no other computer company, even Acer or Asus touches Samsung on price performance or bang for the buck. There's a revolution going on in the US notebook industry and Samsung is leading the charge.All of the other Notebook computer companies have to be playing their A game to stay up with Samsung now. You just need to stop by a local Office Max or Best Buy store to compare Samsung notebooks against their competitors, Apple, Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Sony,  HP and you will see what I mean.

From a sales and marketing perspective, Samsung is running on all 8 cylinders in the US markets. They have forged exclusive channels with Staples and Best Buy adding Office Depot and Office Max with select brands of their notebook and tablet lines. Some of the Costcos had initially sold the Series 9 ultra thin notebook in the summer.

Aggressive pricing with coupons and trade-in programs has boosted sales of Samsung notebooks this past quarter and they are prepared to take advantage of the holiday season. They have been hiring corporate sales reps to push the Samsung line of notebooks into corporate America and have been working with leasing firms like GE capital to accelerate the technology refresh at the fortune 1000 companies. Trade publications like PC magazine, PC World and even Consumer Reports have been cranking out glowing reviews of th e latest and greatest Samsung notebooks. I expect to see more advertising and marketing dollars spent in the coming year to elevate the sales figures to where they may quickly gain the number one or two sales slot for selling PCs in North America. Their tablets are also selling very well and I expect to see more feature creep from Notebooks moving to Tablets and vice versa. Samsung can pull this off as their time to market is lightning fast and they can easily introduce new models at the drop of a hat and change their pricing to accommodate most any corporate or individual buyer.

We all will benefit as this will result in all of the manufacturers having to make downward price adjustments just to stay competitive with Samsung notebook and tablet offerings.

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