An Overview Of The Company Samsung Marketing Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Samsung Electronics Company is the flagship subsidiary of the Samsung Group. Its headquarters is located in Seoul, Korea, and has assembly plants and sales networks in 65 different countries around the world. Samsung Electronics is the world's largest electronics company, and ranked 19th in the annual Best Global Brands Ranking, conducted by Interbrand, in 2010 (Kim par.1). Its sales revenue in the areas of LCD and LED displays and computer chips is the world's No.1. Apart from Samsung branded finished products, SEC is also a major supplier of crucial components to its rival companies ("The Succession…" par. 7). Samsung-manufactured components are not only used in Samsung brand electronics, but many other TV and mobile phone brands also contain Samsung-manufactured memory components.

Samsung Electronics has two major product divisions. One is Finished Goods division which again divides into Digital Media division that produces televisions, refrigerators, printers, etc and Information Communication division that produces cellular phones and other communication devices. The other major division is the Component division which divides into Semi-conductor part and LCD part. Although the global strategy of Samsung Electronics is implemented throughout the whole division, we will focus mainly on Samsung TVs and mobile phones of the finished goods division. Samsung is most known for LED-backlit LCD TVs and mobile phones which are products Samsung has announced as the future growth engine. Samsung TVs have grown to be the most profitable and competitive sector among all Samsung products, being the No.1 TV producer in the global market for 5 years in a row. As for mobile phones, the rapid expansion and increasing significance of the market for smart phones and the strong competition inside have made Samsung announce strategic focus in the cellular phone segment in the future.

II. Current Status and Competition of SEC

In the TV segment, Samsung Electronics uses innovation in technology and eco-friendly products, R&D, joint venture, partnering, acquisitions, and Channel Management Excellency strategy in order to expand their brand awareness and global market share, increasing overall revenue (Samsung Electronic, Pg. 2). Samsung has been ranking 1st in global TV sales for 5 consecutive years, and has 20% market share in the global LCD TV market. What is more important, however, is that Samsung LCD TV sales accounts for over 23% of total global TV sales, which reflects the fact that Samsung has sold higher-priced TVs compared to its competitors, showing the outstanding quality of Samsung TVs (Samsung Electronics Rep.). In the global LCD panel market, Samsung has been ranking 1st for eight consecutive years (See Table 1).

Table 1: 10 Worldwide Flat Panel TV Brand Rankings by Revenue Share

 

 

 

 

 

Q/Q

Growth

Rank

Brand

Q3'10

Q4'10

Y/Y

Share

Share

Growth

27%

54%

20%

15%

29%

25%

28%

1

Samsung

21.60%

21.40%

2%

2

Sony

11.80%

14.20%

34%

3

LGE

13.50%

12.70%

18%

4

Panasonic

9.10%

8.30%

13%

5

Sharp

8.00%

8.10%

67%

Other

36%

35.30%

8%

Total

100.00%

100.00%

15%

Source: DisplaySearch Advanced Quarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report

Samsung's mobile phones also make up a crucial part of Samsung's global performance. Samsung Electronics has sold 70 million in the first quarter of 2011 alone, reaching sales of approximately 10.6 trillion won and profit of 1.4 trillion won. With Samsung's Galaxy Tab and Galaxy S model, it has been maintaining second best in the world's best selling mobile phones, closely following Apple's iPhone4 (See Table 2). Competition is especially important for Samsung's mobile phones, especially for its smart phones. Samsung has been openly competing with Apple in the smart phone industry. The impact of Apple's iPhone4 in the smart phone market, mostly based on high brand loyalty is a severe threat to SEC. Such competitive structure has influenced Samsung's strategy both positively and negatively.

Table 2: 10 best-selling mobile phones (February 2011 Krusell versions):

1. (1)

2. (8)

3. (2)

4. (3)

5. (5)

6. (10)

7. (7)

8. (-)

9. (-)

10. (6)

Apple

Samsung

HTC

Nokia

Nokia

Nokia

Samsung

HTC

Samsung

Samsung

iPhone 4

GalaxyTab

HD Desire

3720 Classic

C5

E52

GT-B2710 / Xcover 271

Wildfire

B2700

i9000 Galaxy S

() = position last month.

The competition has fueled Samsung toward more intensive R&D, promotions, and investments in the mobile phones sector. However, it has also led Samsung to become overly competition-oriented, raising issues such as lack of originality (especially in product design).

III. Strategies and Implementations

Before anything, this section reflects the strategies and their implementations in the cellular phone industry and TV industry. We will explain the strategies SEC uses to strengthen its growth. In the latter part of this paper will explain these strategies in international business related terms.

1. Vertical Integration - gain of both global efficiency and local responsiveness

Vertical Integration is done when companies in the supply chain are united through a common owner, which in this case is Samsung Electronics. Samsung Electronics concentrated on Vertical Integration of the manufacturing process from the beginning with the establishment of the company to support the gain of economies of scale when producing the Television sets. This strategy acted as a backbone of Samsung electronics as the company grew and became one of the core competencies. Successfully expanding the strategy globally, Samsung now has 30 manufacturing factories and 24 R&D laboratories worldwide excluding ones in South Korea. The Vertical Integration strategy gives Samsung Electronics advantages in risk-management and quality control because the whole process is internalized. However, the major competitive advantage that Samsung gains via Vertical integration is obtaining the ability to gain both global efficiency and local responsiveness.

Global efficiency is pursued by flexible plant locations and R&D facilities which has high configuration but strong coordination supported by technological advancement in transportation and communication and the centralized organization structure. Local Responsiveness is gained by the optimization of the production line. Samsung Electronics can introduce a new product with newly advanced or different components within 2 or 3 months while others can take a more than 6 months or even 1 or 2 years. Moreover, it is relatively easy for Samsung to diversify the products in the same product category for all the components are produced internally. This means that Samsung can adapt to the local needs and trends with fast altering and diversification of the products.

Effects of Vertical Integration in the Cellular Phone Industry

In the cellular phone market, the trends among the phone makers are a focus on OEM (original equipment manufacturing) and outsourcing of manufacturing for concentration on software and content development. Apple outsources all the hardware and Nokia and LG is also trying to reduce the manufacturing part. However, Samsung Electronics decided to focus on the hardware and make collaborations with the content providers. Along with the cost efficiency benefit, this decision to fully exploit the vertical integration gave Samsung Electronics two advantages: fast adaptation to the newly developed technologies and flexible adaptation to the OS and carriers. As a result, Samsung Electronics has highly diversified state-of-art technology products each optimized to reach the trend of the region and adapt to the OS and carriers.

TV industry and Joint Venture

Unlike the cellular phone industry, the TV industry has not fully utilized vertical integration. Deviating from the Samsung's original strategy of vertical integration in its supply chain, TV division uses joint ventures to penetrate emerging markets as well as gain market shares. Especially, when the product innovation is at a super fast pace these days, SEC needed to keep up with the competitors by propping themselves up with good competencies in their products. When SEC faced any firms that produced better technologies, they chose to join forces with them which effectively reduced the risk, time and cost for SEC to develop their own.

SEC entered a joint venture with India firms for their emerging SmartTV market in India ("Samsung Partners…" 1). This was to effectively localize their content on SmartTV which will have good impact on the consumer side since they will be already familiar with the local brands. Because SmartTV uses internet and applications, there are so many possibilities for growth; hence, SEC wanted their joint venture as a source to develop better ideas about innovation in near future with their partners.

In May 11th, 2011, Samsung entered into patent licensing and purchasing agreement with a firm called Evident Technologies, a semiconductor nanocrystal product development, in which Samsung is granted worldwide access to Evident's patent portfolio for all products related to quantum dot LEDs from manufacture of the quantum dot nanomaterials to final LED production ("Samsung and Evident…" par. 1). This reveals SEC's quick response to technology development. SEC definitely didn't want to miss out on obtaining the most advanced technology by letting their competitors work in joint ventures with the technology leaders. SEC is not only concerned about their brand and the high-quality products, but also they are much concerned about whether they make that market share goal or not.

Although they could have fully acquired many firms, they did not do that because SEC wanted to reduce the risk ("Samsung and Evident…" par. 4). Initially, they're starting out with joint ventures, but as time pass by, there will be re-evaluations of the firms in joint venture, and SEC will decide whether or not they will fully acquire the partner. However, since there are many rapid changes and innovation at hand, Samsung needed to keep up with the R&D as well as reduce as much risk as possible. Therefore, a feasible option they chose was the joint venture. Even though joint venture is not Samsung's main strategies, TV division needed joint venture to penetrate the market, gain market share, and increase brand awareness.

2. Innovation

The high tech industry requires innovative products of high quality while keeping costs as low as possible. Samsung electronics continues to succeed in developing innovative products every year. In fact in 2009, Samsung electronics invested KRW 7.6 trillion or 5.5% of its consolidated sales in 2009, in R&D in order to enhance competitiveness in the major business line and secure future technologies within the high tech industry (Song and Jeong 19).

Samsung's mission is to continually innovate and produce new products. Because of this, they have developed a very quick development phase in order to get products to the market as quick as possible. One way this is accomplished is through exploitation of vertical integration as mentioned above. As the R&D sector of the organization is structured into three layers, Samsung managers go through fewer layers in the firm in order to get approval for a new product, budget or marketing plan. This allows for more opportunities to be captured and brought to the market in expedited manner (Edwards, Ihlwan and Engardio par. 14).

Sashimi Theory

Additionally, they emphasize innovation and quick development by following the "Sashimi theory". This means getting products to the market while they are "fresh" in order to make the most profits. They don't want to wait until the product has become "dried fish" to launch a product because they cannot make as high of a profit. The trick is to get the best technology out to the market before the competitors because before you know it, the technology becomes a commodity. Following this theory means lots of innovation because the company must always be looking for and developing the next "big thing" (Engardio, Ihlwan par. 1-3).

We can see how these innovative strategies are applied in Samsung's TV division. Currently the 3D TV technology has been on a trend of increasing in its demand. According to Financial Express, the global 3D television market will grow more than five-fold to account for 11 percent of flat-screen TV sales this year, as prices fall sharply and manufacturers add the function as an add-on feature. IHS iSuppli projected 3D TV shipments would rise to 23.4 million units this year from last year's 4.2 million units, gaining further to 159 million by 2015. In less than a year since the cutting edge 3D-TV technology was introduced, it became a commodity product which means that people are indifferent to which suppliers are supplying them when they consider a purchasing of 3D TV (Ramstad 1).

This shows the pace of the innovation and technology development in consumer electronics industry is very fast, which approves the need for SEC's strategy of rapid technological advancement through R&D. Although 3D TV technology has not been around for a long time and that it is currently on the growing stage of its Product Life Cycle, another technologically innovated product called SmartTV was released. SmartTV will be a TV that combines the features of TV and Smartphone together which means that the TV will have an access to internet. Also, multi-tasking will be available such as running Skype, Facebook, and TV at the same time.

Eco-Friendly Innovation

We can also see how Samsung's innovation through their development of eco-friendly products. Because of the global warming issue that concerns everyone around the world, they're showing to public that they care about the environment around the whole world by introducing reduced power consumption by their products. They have a specific graph that shows how they reduced carbon dioxide emission level by reducing their power consumption in their products in their website. In September 2008, the International Energy Agency released South Korea's goals for 2030 concerning national energy policy, stating that the country aims to decrease its energy intensity level by 46 percent (Bradbury 10). South Korea's government is pursuing actively to be a green leader. And SEC is complying with this motive to appeal to not only domestic consumers but people around the world. SEC announced in February 2010 that it had begun mass-producing the company's first green DDR 3 memory technology. The company expects the new technology to bring significant power savings. The four gigabyte based module can save 35 percent in power consumption (Bradbury 11). Overall, this eco-friendly innovation helps SEC to appeal in highly benign way to consumers which builds brand loyalty for the people.

As part of its "green management plan" Samsung will invest KRW5.4 trillion to curb greenhouse gases (GHG) and develop eco-products through 2013. This investment will be used to reduce GHG generated from business premises and product usage, increasing the number of green products available, investing in green R&D creating an overall green workplace (Song and Jeong 5). This will be a significant investment is in R&D to find new ways of developing eco-friendly products and renewable technology.

A development in the phone industry is the phone "Blue Earth"-a solar powered mobile phone. This phone can be charged by the solar panels located on the back of the phone. The phone is created from post consumer material (PCM) extracted from plastic water bottles and does not contain potentially harmful substances such as brominated flame retardants, beryllium and phthalate. The packaging for the product is also ecofriendly and is made from easy to recycle paper and printed in soy ink. A feature of theThere is also a "eco mode" function that adjusts the brightness of the screen with just one botton (Song and Jeong 47).

Additionally, in the TV industry, Samsung has developed LED TVs that offer resource savings and energy efficiency. This involves having mercury free LED backlighting that consumes 40% less power. The standby power consumption is just at 0.08W and the thin frame decreases the weight of the TV by 34% (Song and Jeong 47).

3. Marketing Strategy

Collaboratively, marketing strategy comes generally in synergy with other strategies of innovation, and vertical integration. Originally, Samsung had been a product-driven company that focused on manufacturing existing products at lower cost than its competitors and thereby built market share by economies of scales (Quelch 2). Because Samsung had to build brand power to win in the long run, they decided to switch over to value adding high-quality marketing strategy to succeed in the market.

Now that quality, design and market penetration are the cornerstone to which SEC focuses on, SEC's products themselves became self-equipped marketing machines that help brand awareness among the consumers. However, there are still specific marketing tactics that SEC uses to market their products. Penetration of the emerging market is a critical source for SEC to increase their market share, but this needs to come carefully with consideration of research of the local market. Thus, SEC decided to use joint venture to assist its success in emerging markets in which localization became an important factor to approach the local market in friendlier way.

Another critical factor of marketing was its redistribution of its marketing funds to build long term brand visibility, brand loyalty, and brand awareness. Initially, there were resistance from regional and product managers to major changes, but when Eric Kim, an executive VP of global marketing operations, brought forth enhancement of long term benefits such as brand preference, market share, and operating profits, it showed that marketing funds can be used more efficiently. As a result, it launched more creative advertising campaigns on a larger scale. (Quelch 7)

Leaving the Old Fashion

Kim's marketing initiatives made SEC undergo through a set of changes which is referred to as market-driven change, or MDC. MDC helped SEC view marketing as an important business function rather than as a series of one-off advertising and campaigns and promotions. MDC revealed that SEC lacked a strong brand, lacking emotion and human face, so one of the campaign they started was called "DigitAll-Everyone's Invited". This campaign showed how Samsung is uniquely positioned company that empowers not only communication, but also entertainment and easy-to-use-devices to the people from all walks of life. (Quelch 8-9)

In October of 2009, Samsung's "Jet Phone" received 2 million units in pre-orders from mobile carriers around the world even before its release. How were they able to do that? The secret to such successful release of the new product laid in pre-marketing. Just like how movies build its demand for the movie way before with the movie trailers, SEC developed its pre-marketing tactic to efficiently introduce and distribute the new product to its already existent market. SEC opened a website called "Samsung Unpacked" which was a teaser site for Jet Phone with no technical info and x-ray image of the handset, and they were able to stimulate consumers' interest all around the world (Lim par. 2). "The inner part of the phone, including the embedded chips, could be seen clearly, but the external side was completely veiled. This indeed was a new innovative method of pre-marketing" (Lim par. 2).

Also, the official launch event was very special in which it contributed to obtain a huge successful attention from the participants in the event. The stereotype of the launch event is that it is usually held in one place, but SEC, being the first, held global launch event in London, Singapore, and Dubai simultaneously (Lim par. 3). Simultaneous launch event was not the only extraordinary marketing strategy. They also put different color themes in each location, blue for London, green for Dubai, and purple for Singapore-this created more friendly and approachable vibe to the launch event. The venues were located at River Thames in London, and at Changi Exhibition Center in Singapore. Changi Exhibition Center was remodeled from a Changi Int'l Airport which relays to the 'Jet Phone' that SEC is exhibiting. Location was the indirect influence to the participants and public press. "The presentation proceeded like a scientific fiction movie Minority Report, with the host explaining the new product by sliding fingers on a screen that has 3D hologram images" (Lim, par. 4).

Again, Kim's innovation in marketing department led to SEC's underlying success of Samsung mobile phones. He understood that even if a new product with state-of-the-art technology is released, it won't be successful if it is not communicated efficiently to the consumers; thus, losing the opportunity of possible market shares. Consequently, SEC caught eyes of world consumers on the back of such aggressive marketing. According to Brand Keys, a US based research firm that reports US consumer survey results, Samsung mobile phones were ranked number one in customer loyalty for an unprecedented eight year in a row, 2002 to 2009. (Lim par. 7)

Partnering and Localization

SEC is strongly determined to push its innovation and brand awareness to its products, so they are using joint venture, partnering, and licensing strategies overseas to capture as much market share as they can. For example, SEC plans to set up joint venture with the local government of Suzhou to build LCD plant-this overall, is to build up greater presence in China in which flat-screen television market is growing fast (Lee, Jung-ah par. 1). This also helps SEC build its ties with the Chinese vendors to win some customers over with the 3D TV technology (Lee, Jung-ah par. 2). And SEC included TCL Corp., a Chinese TV maker, to their venture as well to further strengthen Samsung's competitiveness in China; basically, Samsung wants these Chinese companies to take in more stakes in the venture to firmly build a good business relationship. In addition, according to a research firm DisplaySearch, LCD television shipments in China are expected to grow to 57.8 million units in 2014, from 45 million in 2011, while 3D TV shipments are expected to grow to 13.9 million units from 2.3 million (Lee, Jung-ah par. 3). Apparently, Samsung is taking its necessary steps to break in to a huge market through joint ventures rather than taking the entire stake by itself.

As an another example of partnering, on April 5th 2011, SEC agreed with Indian media and entertainment companies-NDTV Convergence, MoneyControl, Hungama, and Times Music-to deliver their content on its SmartTVs, thus allowing news, movies, music, and business news through TV applications starting in the second half of this year. This shows how SEC is replicating the success of Apple Inc.'s App Store on the TV front by building partnerships with local content makers tailored for each domestic market. This is all part of Channel Management Excellency (CME) strategy. ("Samsung Partners…" 1)

Through CME, SEC is successfully penetrating the market with its products. Technology, innovation, and quality weren't all that mattered. As CME strategy focuses on joint venture and enhancement of distribution channel. In Africa, there is a huge market growth of 1.75 billion USD this year according to DisplaySearch. With current market share of 39.8 percent in the TV market, SEC is pushing for collaboration with LG Electronics to effectively obtain most of the market share in Africa before other competitors do ("Samsung Partners…" 1). Such joint venture effort to succeed in the overseas markets shows how SEC is striving for global expansion through CME strategy. Collaboration with DreamWorks to distribute 3D products and their agreement on combined R&D effort related to 3D TV and smart TV also show how Samsung is willing to join forces with possible competitors to dominate the market.

IV. Evaluation on Samsung Electronics' Global Strategy

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Weaknesses

Up to date technology

Quick response to development of technology

Strong brand image

Diversity of products (Apple only iPhone, Samsung Galaxy Series and Nexus, and etc.)

Low brand loyalty

Weak symbolic design

Weak presence in low-end market

Disappointing customer service in global market (customer service is not as satisfying as that of Korea)

Poor software infrastructure

Opportunity

Threats

Smart tv-phones synergy effect

First-mover advantage : Smart TV

Android reference phone : Nexus S (expected to produce better smart phones, better optimization)

Smart TV : Upcoming competitors (Google, Apple)

Smart Phones : intense competition

failure in promoting Smart TV

Strengths

One strength of Samsung Electronics is that the products are very adaptable to new technology. Due to enormous investment on hardware R&D, they hold some core technology and it is easy for them to apply it to their products. Another strength is that Samsung has strong high quality brand image. Samsung is a global corporation, and now everyone knows Samsung and quality of their product. Promoting new products is not a difficult thing. Unlike other companies like Apple, there is a wide range of products that Samsung holds. While Apple only releases one product at a time, Samsung produced Galaxy S, Nexus S and etc. Also, the design of Galaxy S differs among carriers thus strengthening the localization.

Weaknesses

While Samsung does have many strengths, they also have many weaknesses. While they do have a very good, high quality brand image, their customer loyalty is not strong. Additionally, Samsung does not have a symbolic design-a design that can easily distinguish a product as being a Samsung product. While some companies like Blackberry and Apple have their own design style, Samsung doesn't. Additionally, while Samsung is known for their satisfying customer service in Korea, global ratings on Samsung customer service is somewhat poor. Finally, the software infrastructure is very poor that Korean companies are not good at programming.

Opportunities

Samsung has created a remote controller for Samsung Smart TV's that operates only on Samsung Smart phones. Samsung could aim for Smart TV - Smart phones synergy effect in sales.

Samsung is the first in the world to produce Smart TV's and create application store for Smart TV's. Thus, Samsung could get a first mover advantage, and dominate the Smart TV market before other companies enter the market.

Samsung is expected to get better in hardware-software compatibility, since they made Android Reference phone and Nexus S in cooperation with Google. This means that Samsung and Google would have shared a lot of information for OS optimization, and Samsung could get rid of the past blemishes of bad optimization in OS.

Threats

Google and Apple is about to produce Smart TV's also, and they are really known for their good software and application stores. If Samsung cannot develop their BADA OS and Samsung Application Store really well, they would lose their market share in TV markets.

Samsung is already in intense competition in Cell Phone markets. Too much competition could damage Samsung itself. Highly intense competition could lead to Zero-Sum Game.

Smart TV is a new concept, and if Samsung fails to promote the necessity of Smart TV and create the needs for it, Samsung would have to take a great loss.

V. Recommendations

Currently, Samsung Electronics is using Transnational Strategy. There is no need to alter their strategy at this moment. Samsung Electronics won against the world recession, and their revenues were still high. Through joint ventures and innovation, they were able to develop customized, or localized, products all around the world. They coordinated distribution very well through Channel Management Excellency strategy using joint ventures, partnering, and licensing. SEC's current focus is on building brand value and awareness among its consumer electronics. By using joint venture, they were able to approach local markets in a very friendly way. This tactic was a very viable option for SEC since the cost is relatively low compared with direct competition with these local competitors and development of SEC's own market and development in technology. Developing eco-friendly products was also a very good move to increase brand awareness among its consumers. All the strategies they are using are most optimized strategies at this moment, except for vertical integration.

Providing the standardized products as well as customized products is important because people are sensitive to electronic goods. All that an electronic good needs is a user-friendly trait if SEC wants to target larger market segment. Standardization will provide good conforming image of the brand Samsung while localization-customizing to local preference-helps locals to be more prone to use Samsung. For example, Smart TV itself can be very much standardized in its features, but the content of Smart TV can be customized to fully satisfy the utility of local people.

However, in terms of coordination and configuration, SEC needs to make some alterations. SEC's research and development facilities are heavily located in South Korea and more than half of SEC's total employees are employed in Korea. This means that the configuration of SEC is concentrated. In regards to coordination, they manage their global strategic activities in unified manner. Also, they control all the global marketing and innovations in consistent approach, striving for same goal of increasing brand awareness and market share around the world. Coordination should remain highly controlled by the headquarters in Korea to further strengthen the unity of the brand image around the world, yet configuration needs to be dispersed to meet the increasing global demands.

In simple words, SEC needs to grow proportionately to the demands of the people. If the demand for SEC's products is rising, SEC needs the capability to supply the demand to keep the prices at equilibrium in terms of economics. If SEC fails to supply all the demands by the consumers around the world, their price will need to be increased which will lead people to switch over to SEC's competitors to find what they need. As explained in the earlier strategy sections, the demand for new products such as 3D TV or Smart TV is projected to massively grow. Not only should they enhance the capabilities of production in manufacturing factories, but also should they keep up with the innovation by setting more R&D facilities around the world, effectively enhancing their technology level with the help of third party resources. Consequently, configuration of SEC must be dispersed.

SEC is known famously for their vertical integration which led them to successfully operate in cost-efficient way as well as successfully releasing new products in short time through highly coordinated collaboration between its firms in its supply chain. Joint ventures and partnering is a new strategy that SEC has entered into. They chose this strategy because they can only grow so much with simple massive export with no physical presence in overseas market. This partnership needs to be maintained well until SEC grows even more. However, for SEC's further growth and for the benefits of vertical integration, SEC should acquire these companies once they have enough capital in the long run, effectively integrating its supply chain.

With respect to specific strategies, SEC can improve in areas of software infrastructure in its hardware goods and in the products for lower-end market. SEC has its own OS, or operations system, called BADA. However, this OS is not the most attractive OS as compared to its competitors' OS. SEC may be the number one in hardware manufacturing, but its software development is very fragile. If they choose to use outside party for their OS, they will lose their competency in providing the consumers with "high-quality" goods. Simply, they'll have to compete on the grounds of better design and other aesthetical features of the products.

Because SEC has focused its strategy on being a technological leader in the consumer electronics industry, they have neglected the lower income sector of the global market. Although they were successful targeting upper and middle-class market segments, they should be more diverse with their products. This may be a controversial issue to whether or not a multinational corporation should only focus on a specific market segment. However, for the sheer growth purpose, if they can obtain lower-class market segment, they may increase not only the brand awareness, but also revenue in turn.

With eco-friendly features of the products included in its marketing and innovation, SEC will be able to grow fast and on a huge scale to achieve its goal in becoming one of the top leading companies around the world. Overall, SEC is doing well and they should pursue further growth by implementing our recommendation.