Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) issued an apology to its Chinese customer after it was bashed by China’s state broadcaster for its Galaxy S and Note smartphones for crashing over 30 times in a day.
Samsung posted on its Chinese website, “we welcome the scrutiny by the media. As a result of management problems, we have brought inconveniences to consumers, and we offer our sincere apologies.” The post was in Chinese and was translated by TNW.
Samsung to make amends
World’s largest smartphone maker will take up both the devices for repairing free of cost along with reimbursing the amount for those who have already paid to get their devices resolved. Also, Korean electronic major will exchange the handset for free if the problem persists even after fixing it once.
Samsung will be hoping to retain its top selling phone brand status in China after the apology episode. Last Year, Samsung sold 30 million devices in China and held 17.7% market share, outperforming 11% share by Apple, which stood at 3rd position.
Stocks of Samsung continue to tumble for the fourth day, declining 0.6 percent. Galaxy series maker has outperformed dominant domestic handset makers like Lenovo; China Wireless Technologies Ltd.’s Coolpad; ZTE Corp.; Huawei Technologies Co.; and Xiaomi Corp., according to Canalys.
A similar case with Apple earlier
Prior to Samsung, another major phone maker, Apple also expressed regret for not handling the repair and warranty enquiries for the iPhone 4 and 4S in China. A report against Apple stated that iPhone maker only fixed broken or damaged parts in the phone, whereas it offered replacement in other countries.
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook apology came in the midst of striking a deal with the world’s largest network carrier, China Mobile, which has a sprawling customer base of around 745 million customers.
Local enterprises favored
Government of China and domestic media in the country has aimed on various foreign companies over past few years and accused them of corruption practices and price gouging. Earlier this week, Starbucks corp was alleged, by government controlled television broadcaster, to have excessive profit margin.
Many foreign companies hold the belief that government of China favors domestic companies and the state run enterprises.
