In recent days, we have also seen a lot of news on the Internet, some athletes will receive a big gift package from the official after entering the Olympic Village of the Winter Olympic Games, and there are many gifts in the gift package, including Samsung mobile phones worth about 8,000 yuan and high-end headphones worth about 1,000 yuan.
After seeing this gift package, many athletes have lamented that the Olympic Organizing Committee of the Winter Olympic Games is really too warm and too local, but in fact, these mobile phones are not gifted by the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee, but sponsored by Samsung.
The phone sponsored by Samsung is the Galaxy Z Flip3 5G folding phone, the market price is between 8,000 yuan and 9,400 yuan, plus about 1,000 yuan of Galaxy Buds2 sports headphones, the total price is about 10,000 yuan.
The total number of athletes participating in the Beijing Winter Olympics this time is 2892, which means that Samsung has paid about 29 million yuan in sponsorship fees, which can be said to be bloody.
So why does Samsung spend so much money to sponsor athletes? Many friends say that Samsung is preparing for returning to the Chinese market.
As we all know, Samsung has always been one of the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers, before 2016, Samsung mobile phones in China's domestic market once occupied the forefront of the position, such as in 2012 in China's smartphone sales list, Samsung ranked First, the market share reached 17.9%.
Although since 2013, with the rise of some Chinese brand mobile phones such as Xiaomi, Samsung's market share has shrunk, but in 2013 and 2014, the sales of Samsung mobile phones are still very large.
Among them, the sales volume of Samsung mobile phones in 2013 still ranked First, although the ranking declined in 2014, but the annual sales of Samsung mobile phones in the Chinese market still reached 58.4 million units, and the market share still reached 4.38%;
However, by 2015, the share of Samsung mobile phones in the Chinese market has begun to decline, and by the first quarter of 2015, Samsung's market share has fallen to 10%.
In the face of declining market share, Samsung mobile phones not only did not take positive measures to deal with it, but also showed an arrogant attitude, which exploded in 2016.
On August 24, 2016, a South Korean forum released a picture of a note7 explosion, and in early September 2016, 35 more Samsung note7 explosions broke out around the world.
In the face of the constantly exploding Note7, Samsung finally admitted that there was a problem with the battery, and then began to recall the Samsung Note7 around the world, but unexpectedly, Samsung did not include the Chinese market in the scope of the recall.
At that time, the reason given by Samsung was simple, they believed that the battery used by the Chinese National Bank version of note7 was not the same as the battery used in overseas markets, so there was no problem.
But on September 18, 2016, the Samsung Note7 of the Chinese National Bank of China exploded for the first time.
Subsequently, on September 14, 2016, Samsung was interviewed by the State Administration of Quality Supervision of China, and finally Samsung was forced to recall 1858 Note7s.
But the number of Samsung recalls this is obviously too small, they still do not admit that there is a problem with the Chinese National Bank version of the battery, as a result, from September 18, 2016 to October 3, 2016, the Chinese National Bank version of the Samsung Note7 has 7 explosions in a row, this time Samsung completely angered the majority of Chinese consumers, have been boycotted by Chinese netizens.
Later, Samsung asked executives of Chinese companies to apologize to suppliers on their knees, which further aroused the anger of the vast number of Chinese netizens, and then Samsung quickly fell into the bottom of the Chinese market.
Since 2017, Samsung's market share in China has plummeted rapidly, and in 2017, Samsung's sales in the Chinese market have fallen to 11.07 million units, and the market share has directly fallen to 2%.
In 2018, Samsung's sales in the Chinese market fell to 3.34 million units, with a market share of only 0.8%, down 74% year-on-year.
After 2019, Samsung mobile phones have basically no sales in the Chinese market, and the ranking has been included in the ranks of other, almost negligible.
After the rapid decline in China's market share, some of Samsung's factories in China have also closed, from 2018 to 2020, Samsung has closed some factories in Suzhou, Huizhou, Shenzhen and other factories, and then moved the mobile phone production line to some regions such as Southeast Asia.
However, in the face of China's huge smartphone market, Samsung is not willing to quit, so in the past two years, Samsung has begun to quietly enter the Chinese market.
Especially in the context of Huawei's limited market share and rapid decline in market share, Samsung has seen the opportunity, so it tries to regain the recognition of Chinese consumers through various ways, thereby occupying the high-end market of Chinese smartphones.
For example, Samsung held a special press conference on China in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province in 2020, launched three new products Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10 mobile phones, and Samsung also expanded its influence in the Chinese market by cooperating with some e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and sponsoring variety shows such as "Brother with Thorns".
Although Samsung has worked hard, the performance of Samsung mobile phones in China's domestic market is extremely cold, such as Samsung's global shipments in 2021 as high as 271 million units, the market share of up to 20%, but in the Chinese market can not find the corresponding sales data, indicating that Samsung sales in the Chinese market in 2021 is still very small, conservative estimates will not exceed 1 million units.
But China's smartphone market is indeed very attractive, for example, in 2020, the Chinese market sales reached 329 million units, accounting for more than 24% of global smartphone sales, and the huge market has brought huge profits to many mobile phone manufacturers, such as Apple has earned tens of billions of dollars in profits from the Chinese market every year.
In the face of the huge consumer market, Samsung has been looking for opportunities to regain market confidence, so taking advantage of the Beijing Winter Olympics, a sports event, they have taken out nearly 30 million yuan to sponsor athletes, which is actually well-intentioned.
However, the current Chinese mobile phone market has been very different from the previous few years, the current Chinese domestic brand mobile phone has risen rapidly, whether it is a low-end brand or a high-end brand have corresponding manufacturers to provide, at this time Samsung mobile phone wants to reshape the glory in the Chinese market, basically impossible.
But for Samsung, spending 30 million to sponsor the Winter Olympics, in fact, is nothing, on the one hand, can improve the influence in China, on the other hand, even if the market share in China can not be restored, but they still play a certain role in the world by distributing mobile phones to athletes from all over the world, such as these athletes through self-media to promote this big package, which invisibly also brings a good advertising effect to Samsung.