Samsung Attempting To Crack Japanese Market By Removing Logo From Galaxy S6 And S6 Edge
Samsung made the decision to white-label their raging new entries into the smartphone space amid persistent rumors that the company was planning to entirely pull its smartphone business out of Japan. The company has had a difficult time trying to establish any kind of a foothold in the Land of the Rising Sun, and with only a sliver of the Japan's smartphone market share (5.6%) it currently sits in the #5 position behind Apple (40.8%) and Japanese players Sony (18.1%), Sharp (12.4%), Fujitsu (8.8%). This despite having a 25% share of the smartphone market worldwide.
A company spokesperson speaking in Seoul on Sunday said, "We think the Galaxy brand has been well established in Japan.", and declined to elaborate any further.
The iPhone notwithstanding, consumers in Japan have a strong predilection for buying locally-produced products. Coupled with the longstanding animosity between Japan and Samsung's native Korea, this easily explains the company's decision to leech their new Android devices of brand identity. Stripped of the company logo, Samsung hopes that superior tech and build quality will be enough to overcome the nationalistic challenges and put their products into the hands of more Japanese consumers. And this no-name gambit by Samsung isn't relegated solely to the new phones themselves, but also to their packaging, all associated marketing materials, and even the Samsung Facebook page (renaming it in Japan to ‘Galaxy Mobile Japan’).
