By Chris Nicholls
SYDNEY: Samsung has confirmed it will counter rival Sony’s pre-Olympics PS3/Bravia promotion with its own offer, due to be announced next week, but other major player Panasonic has remained circumspect.
While Samsung marketing director, Kurt Jovais remained quiet on the product involved in the promotion, only confirming to Current.com.au it would be television-related and “not a product not many people have”, he told The Australian newspaper’s Media section it would be Foxtel’s HD+ set top box.
Jovais did not state explicit details to The Australian, but the paper said it was understood that Samsung will pay the $200 upgrade cost for existing Foxtel customers.
“The pre-Olympic period’s obviously going to be very aggressive in sales, which is great for the industry. It’s great for manufacturers, it’s great for retailers. There will be a number of promotions that are in offer at that time, and we believe Samsung has a very, very compelling offer in the market at that time,” he said.
Sony’s other major rival, Panasonic, already has its biggest ever promotion in the market, the $3.4 million ‘Swim2Win’ competition, which will run until August 24, and Panasonic Australia managing director, Steve Rust, would not say if the company planned anything else in response to Sony’s move.
“We’re pretty optimistic around our plans for the Olympics. We’ve got very good product in the market, it’s been very well received by the retailers,” said Rust.
“We can never count on success, because you never know what your competitors are going to do, and customers have got plenty of choices. All we can do is go forwards with our best efforts and work hard to win the choice of the consumer, and that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
Panasonic Australia had also enjoyed near-record TV sales in May, Rust said, recording their second highest monthly sales in the local division’s history.