This is the provocative title of a recent Fortune article by Michael Lev-Ram. After Apple’s dominating several markets in the early part of the 21st century (see this post, for example), 2013 promises to be a very competitive marketplace for all sorts of electronic devices. And many experts expect Korea’s Samsung, not Apple, to lead the charge.
As Lev-Ram reports:
“To understand how Samsung became America’s No. 1 mobile phone maker and thorn in Apple’s side, it’s helpful to rewind to last fall. On a mid-September morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook stepped onto a stage in San Francisco to unveil the iPhone 5. Several hundred miles away, a group of marketing executives from Samsung Electronics followed real-time reactions to Cook’s remarks. They huddled around tables mounted with laptops and TV screens, carefully tracking each new feature and monitoring the gush of online comments on the new device via blogs and social media sites.”
“Two hours later, when Cook stepped off the stage, the Samsung group was already drafting a series of print, digital, and TV ads. The following week — as the iPhone 5 went on sale — the company aired a TV ad mocking Apple “fanboys” queuing up for the new phone. The 90-second commercial went on to become the most popular tech ad of 2012, garnering more than 70 million views online. More important, in the weeks following the launch of Apple’s iPhone 5, Samsung sold a record-breaking number of its own signature smartphone, the Galaxy S III.”
Click the image to read Lev-Ram’s full story.
Photo by GUY CO