By Patrick Avenell
Samsung has launched a segmentation of their mobile phone range in an effort to more directly target consumers. By dividing their handsets into six clearly defined categories, Samsung hope to service customer needs more thoroughly and efficiently.
The six new groups of Samsung phones are Style, Business, Connected, Infotainment, Multimedia and Essential. The idea is to pigeonhole a potential customer into one of these categories and then more accurately sell phones to individual needs.
Although the idea is to simplify marketing, Samsung Australia director Josh Delgado acknowledged there is the possibility that the opposite would happen. When asked if this segmentation would actually prove too complicated for the consumer, Delgado was honest yet optimistic. “Absolutely [it could be complicated], but we’ve spent the last five years growing, that’s why we’re segmenting.”
Growth was a recurring theme at the launch, with Samsung claiming a 61% increase in sales (YTD April compared with 2007) and a five per cent increase in market share. This growth has enabled Samsung to declare that they sell a mobile phone in Australia every 15 seconds. Although Delgado was quizzed repeatedly about this claim, he maintained that on current projections Samsung would sell over 2 million phones this year, making Samsung’s mathematically feasible.
The thinking behind segmentation is assisting the mobile phone carriers, which Delgado claims has enormous control over the Australian industry. In the competitive phone handset market, Delgado wants to make it easier for carriers to sell Samsung phones by creating a more streamlined route between the seller and the consumer. “[We will] work with the carriers to send out this message. Nothing works without help from the carrier,” said Delgado.