Samsung’s Rebranding In Japan Didn’t Work Apparently

To overcome its perception problem with customers in the Land of the Rising Sun, Samsung decided to go with a drastic rebranding agenda that involved removing its corporate logo from new mobile devices being sold in the country. They’ve now been branded under the “Galaxy” umbrella but that doesn’t seem to have done wonders for the company’s sales, particularly sales of its new flagship handsets.

Apple dominates Japan’s smartphone market and at one point it happened to be the company’s fastest growing market for smartphones. Out of the top ten handsets in the country’s market six are iPhones, so you can imagine how drastic a change Samsung has had to make in order to claw some share from Apple.

It didn’t work apparently because market research firm BCN’s survey shows that during the week of April 27th to May 3th, lackluster Galaxy S6 sales put the flagship handset at 26th place on the list of most popular smartphones in the Japanese market.

The highest the Galaxy S6 was ever able to go on this list was 10th place which it barely held on to during its launch week. It has all been down from there.

The major reason why Samsung’s new handsets are struggling in the country, even though they perform spectacularly elsewhere, is because Apple is just too dominant in the market and the iPhone has become more of a status symbol than a tool for communication.

Samsung will have to pull something else out of its sleeve if it wants to establish a firm grasp on the Japanese smartphone market.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Galaxy S6, iPhone, Samsung