| Samsung spends significantly more on marketing their mobile devices than Apple does. Samsung is estimated to have spent, in total, $364 million in 2013 in the US. Apple is estimated to have spent $350 million. Is that really "significantly more", especially given that Samsung's total mobile device market is wider than Apple's (e.g. feature phones and so on). Indeed, thinking in terms of purely smartphones -- I see at least four Apple ads for every one Samsung ad I see. Maybe it's just my market (Toronto area), but there is absolutely no question that Apple's conventional ad spend, and their partnerships with carriers (that pollutes the numbers a bit), absolutely dwarfs Samsung's. But of course Apple succeeds because they achieve excellence in all areas. As I mentioned elsewhere, they sure as hell are trying to compete, and anyone that argues that they live on some other plane, free of competition, is deluded. The "bonuses to retail staff" thing, as an aside, seems to be some invention that appeared to justify Android sales, which clearly had to be caused by nefarious interference than consumer choice. |
http://www.asymco.com/2013/04/02/the-cost-of-selling-galaxie...