Samsung’s recent partnership with Chinese search giant Baidu to integrate its latest flagship smartphones with artificial intelligence (AI) technology has received a lukewarm response from consumers in mainland China.
The strategic partnership between Samsung’s China division and Baidu AI Cloud, announced in late January, aims to enhance the AI search functions of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series, which was released in China on January 25, a week after its debut in the US. The partnership involves deploying Baidu’s Ernie large language model (LLM) and search engine to support the handsets’ AI search functions, tailored for the Chinese market.
However, many Chinese consumers have expressed concerns on social media about the search features on the local version of the Galaxy S24 series, which may not be as robust as those on the international version. Some users have compared the “Circle to Search” feature powered by Baidu on the mainland version to the overseas version supported by Google, finding that the former provides fewer results.
Richard Zhang, a 30-year-old Beijing resident, said he planned to buy an overseas version of the Galaxy S24 to get the best AI services, citing concerns about the mainland system’s recognition of Samsung’s own phones as other brands.
Baidu is considered one of the top AI players in China, having launched its own ChatGPT alternative with the Ernie Bot in March 2023. In September, the company unveiled Ernie 4.0, its latest LLM, which it claims is comparable to OpenAI’s GPT-4 in general capabilities.
Despite the partnership with Baidu, Samsung’s position in the Chinese smartphone market is not expected to see significant improvement, as its market share has declined to less than 1% from 20% over the past decade. Chinese vendors like Huawei Technologies, Oppo, and Vivo are also releasing their own LLMs or integrating generative AI features in their latest handsets, posing a challenge to Samsung’s market presence.
Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, noted that within the Chinese market, AI alone is unlikely to trigger immediate changes. However, he sees the partnership with Baidu as a sign of Samsung’s dedication to long-term, consistent operations in China.
In terms of pricing strategy, Samsung has set prices for the S24 and S24+ in China between 500 yuan to 800 yuan (US$70 to US$112) higher than the previous S23 and S23+ models, according to an analysis by Peng Peng, wireless smartphone strategies analyst at TechInsights. In comparison, Samsung maintained the same price tags in the US and reduced prices in Europe.
Peng commented that Samsung’s pricing strategy in China suggests it is not aggressively competing with domestic vendors in terms of value for money in the world’s largest smartphone market.
(Source: Korea Times | SCMP)
