I’m not entirely sure what Samsung is thinking lately, but it doesn’t look good. To be honest this has been a trend in the making for a while, with confusing device names and models with little differences between them. I guess what they are doing is called “market segmentation”. So if 10,000 people want a 7″ tablet, they make one for them, if another 10,000 want the same tablet by in 10″, they make one for them, too, and so on.
They’ve just announced the Galaxy Tab 2.0 at MWC, and although it’s supposed to be a bigger version of the “upgrade” for the original Tab, it’s basically the same as the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Were they so focused on this market segmentation, they they completely missed the fact they’ve just rebuilt Galaxy Tab 10.1, and called it a “new” tablet? Because other than an SD port and the different name, it’s pretty much the same spec wise.
I think Samsung is going to beat Nokia and become the world’s largest manufacturer soon, but I’d hate to see them stumble because they’re losing sight of the bigger picture, while focusing too much on small and almost irrelevant details in the long run. HTC suffered last year for their decision to release model after model with little changes. People got tired of it, and thought their products are just boring.
What else do they expect when they bombard their customers with slightly different models every month? It makes it very difficult to surprise their customers because instead of releasing one model with a lot of new stuff in it, say every 6 months at least, they put some of those in previous monthly models, and by the time the “big one” is out, it looks just like a rehash from last month’s model.
This is why I urge companies to start looking at the bigger picture more, and less at trying to stuff the sales channels with unexciting phones, in the hopes of squeezing a tiny little boost in sales for a “new” model each month, while missing the “big boosts” in the long term, because their customers stop caring altogether.
[Via Engadget]