Samsung Camcorder Sweeps Away Italy

I found an interesting topic in The Digital Times, one of the popular Internet sites of newspapers in Korea.

The topic of the news was "Samsung Camcorder Sweep Away Italy." Following is a translated information of the news.

Using a famous world soccer ball player, Samsung Electronics has become No. 1 in the digital camcorder market in Italy for the first time, and started to take over the European market. Samsung mentioned on July 8, 2008 that Samsung took the first place for two consecutive months in April and May in the SD camcorder market which took 96% of the digital camcorder market in Italy.

This was the first time for Samsung to become the first place in a country in the digital camcorder business. Specially, in case of LCD TV category which is now the #1 business of the world, Samsung became #1 in the LCD TV market in Italy in 2005. With this as a momentum, Samsung took over the Europe market and finally became #1. Although the camcorder category has not yet become the top business currently, Samsung was sure that, like the LCD TV case, the Samsung's digital camcorder business would grow as the top business if Samsung attracted European consumers of very difficult tastes by providing a sensitive design and star marketing. According to GfK, a market research organization, the market share in quantity in the SD camcorder category in Italy from Jan. to May this year was listed as Sony took 29.9%, Samsung 28%, JVC 16.1%, Cannon 14.1%, Panasony 10.5%, etc.

However, in April, Samsung took the first place for the first time with 29.1% market share that was 1.2% more than Sony's. Then, Samsung also took 28.8% market share in April that was 1.4% more than Sony's. With the help of the SD camcorder market, Samsung reduced the market share gap to the No. 1 company in all digital camcorder market in Italy to 0.1%.

The main reason that Samsung could become the top in the camcorder market in Italy was analyzed as, since last year, Samsung used a star marketing strategy such as using Louis Figo, a famous soccer player, as a model.

Mr. Park, a director of Samsung Electronics, said that "Samsung camcorder has been getting a great attention from consumers in Italy which is well known as the hometown of Fashion.", and "Samsung will get more attention from the Italian consumers by providing such marketing activities for its full HD camcorder and other new products."