Huge Spending on Ads
Samsung Electronics expanded their spending on marketing last year amid intense competition with US and Chinese smartphone makers.
Samsung spent 11.5 trillion won (US$10.3 billion) on marketing in 2016, including 4.4 trillion won (US$3.1 billion) on advertisements, a 15 percent increase from a year ago, according to industry sources.
The increase in marketing spending is likely to be related to the full-fledged promotion of its flagship smartphones including the Galaxy S7 and the misfortunate Galaxy Note 7.
In particular, Samsung made desperate efforts to maintain its brand reputation after suspending the production of Galaxy Note 7 due to its being caught fire while charging.
In the meantime, LG Electronics, which focused on promoting its high-end home electronics, spent 1.3 trillion won (US$ 1.2 billion) on advertisements last year, a 21.4 percent increase from the previous year. LG aired its first advertisement during the Super Bowl, to promote its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) television.