The Samsung Saga: Success Story of Smartphone Giant

Abstract

This paper is a case study on the Samsung’s Smartphones business. It made an attempt at identifying the major factors that led to its brilliant growth, and addressing the challenges faced on the way and how Samsung overcame them. In the first section, the paper highlights and discusses two most important turning points that shaped the success of Samsung- 1993 Frankfurt Declaration in which Kun-Hee Lee conveyed to the team his new vision for Samsung, and 2012 Samsung Galaxy S3 launch with better features and design that helped Samsung become a globally acclaimed smartphones market player. The second section discusses the two most important factors behind Samsung’s smartphones success- Work Culture and Marketing mix strategies. Samsung’s focus on meritorious work culture has helped it motivate its employees. The third section gives a detailed competitor analyses wherein Samsung’s three major competitors namely, Apple, Xiaomi and Huawei are discussed. The section helps the readers understand how Samsung is placed in the market in comparison to its competitors. The last section contains SWOT analyses of Samsung. In the end, a crisp conclusion along with learnings from the case and the future prospects of the company has been presented. The paper will be helpful to business professionals, academicians and students trying to understand the success factors behind a major technology giant. The key learnings are the importance of good work culture and a healthy marketing mix essential for a business in a highly competitive environment.