Samsung Says Competition With Apple Is Over "Floating Voters"

During the recent Samsung Unpacked event, the company unveiled two new smartphones, the Galaxy S6 Edge+, and the Note 5. However, the company’s representatives also talked about their goals, sales and ambitions.

Andy Griffiths, Samsung’s president of UK and Ireland told The Guardian that there are people in the smartphone industry that are equivalent to floating voters in the world of elections. The ‘floating voters’ for smartphones are people that are not loyal to a certain brand, and that’s who all the companies are fighting for.

“There are groups of people who stick with what they like, whether that’s Samsung or Apple, and then there are there are people in the middle that you can kind of sway, a bit like the floating voter, and that’s who we’re all fighting for,” Griffiths told the Guardian.

“We hold about two-thirds of the Android base in the UK and we have a very high level of retention. The fact is that it’s a two-brand market and I think people are choosing to go both ways, so we’re always going to be trading customers between us.”

The battle for these “floating voters” has intensified as smartphone penetration has reached saturation point in markets like the UK and US, where most people who are likely to buy a smartphone already have one.

The UK has about 20 per cent of these floating voters, according to Griffiths.

The switching between different brands (and different ecosystems) has become much easier in recent times, with cross-syncing services helping people to take their personal information such as calendars, contacts and email accounts from one platform to another.