Samsung – Device advantage

Samsung is using its control of  the device to its best advantage.

• Samsung’s strategy to move into software and services is starting to bear fruit as it ChatOn IM service has broken the magic 100m user number.
• This number has doubled in the last four months and is showing particular strength in China, India and the US.
• I expect the number to grow strongly as ChatOn is installed on almost every Android and Bada device that the company makes.
• The service is available in almost every country and supports 63 languages.
• These are numbers from Samsung and there is no indication regarding how these numbers are counted or how active these users are.
• Despite this, all of them will have at some point signed up meaning that they now have an account with Samsung.
• This moves Samsung into contention with WhatsApp (300m users), Line (100m+ users) and BlackBerry (75m users)
• This is the key advantage of controlling the device.
• One can ensure that your app is front and centre and this seems to be working to great effect for Samsung.
• This is a good step forward for a company that to date has largely just been all about hardware.
• Samsung knows that it must move up into software and services if it is to preserve its margins and ChatOn is looking like a good start.
• Samsung now has a relationship with 100m users. It may be a tenuous and fickle relationship, but at least it is there.
• Samsung is now in a position to encourage those ChatOn users to try other things like games, social networking, music and so on.
• If it can do that and get those users using its services then it will be well on the road to becoming a Digital Life supplier.
• This is exactly what it must do to preserve its profitability as hardware commoditises.
• This will bring it into direct conflict with Google and is why I believe that the big battle in tech over the next 5 years will be Samsung vs. Google. (see here for more details).
• Everyone scoffs at Samsung’s ability to write software and 8 years ago I was among them.
• Things are quietly changing.
• Samsung is showing some signs of confounding its critics and soon I may have to afford Samsung a position in my list of Digital Life contenders.