Samsung isn’t the first smartphone maker to try to capitalize on the iPhone 4 antenna issues, but they are the only one who stand to directly benefit from Apple’s latest handset’s success.
That’s what makes a recent campaign by Samsung USA so curious. They have begun giving away free Samsung Galaxy S Series smartphones to Brit’s complaining about their iPhone 4 on Twitter.
What’s so odd here is that Samsung makes an estimated $2 billion a year supplying components to Apple for sale in the iPhone. In fact, as 9to5Mac notes, they make $50 for every 16GB iPhone sold, and $75 on every 32GB iPhone sold.
In other words, Samsung’s playing the strange game of competing against itself: stressing the iPhone 4 antenna issue in order to get some free publicity for its own series of handsets, even while profiting directly from every iPhone 4 sold. It’s hard to tell whether or not this is win-win or lose-lose.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
