Samsung and Garmin landed some punches on the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Ultra, but they also served to highlight Apple’s market strength.
Pretty impressive that Apple can get their competitors to do marketing on their behalf.
In the wake of Apple’s “Far Out” event last Wednesday, Samsung and Garmin wasted no time in trying to score some marketing points off of Apple’s new product announcements. One of Samsung’s tweets stated, “👏 Slow clap 👏 for all the “innovation” announced at the Big Event on Wednesday.” The tweet included a video of unimpressed influencers sarcastically clapping the screens of their Galaxy Z Flip phones in mock applause. Another thread on Samsung’s Twitter account highlighted the fact that while Samsung has two main lines of foldable screen smartphones, Apple still doesn’t have a product of that type at all. Garmin got in on the fun too with a tweet that said, “We measure battery life in months. Not hours.”
It’s debatable whether or not foldable phones are worth it for Apple to pursue, but it’s entirely valid (and kind of fun) to see these other companies hitting Apple in areas of apparent weakness. If you want a foldable phone, you’re definitely going to have to go somewhere other than an Apple Store to get one. Likewise, while Apple Watch Ultra is going to convert a significant number of Garmin users, many are understandably unimpressed with Apple’s battery life.
What these social media attacks on Apple definitely do though is highlight just how strong Apple’s position in the market is. That Samsung and Garmin feel the need to directly clap back at Apple shows just how strong Apple’s market position, and its ability to communicate effectively to customers, is. Between Samsung and Garmin, I think Garmin’s tweet is far more tasteful. It’s clearly a shot at Apple Watch Ultra’s battery life, but it doesn’t directly reference Apple, Apple Watch Ultra, or the event itself.
On the other hand, Samsun’s tweets remind me of the meme with the cartoon character who is crying, but is hiding those tears behind a mask with a gloating expression. Samsung makes some great products and really does have something in folding phones that Apple doesn’t currently have an answer for, but these tweets come across as kind of pathetic. They even refer to Apple’s event as “the Big Event.” That would seem to me to make people want to find out what “the Big Event” was if they’re out of the loop.
It’s interesting too because of the two competitors mentioned here, Garmin’s really the only one that has anything to worry about. Samsung is always going to be a powerful player in smartphones. It’s proven itself to be a strong competitor to the iPhone. But Garmin’s operating in much more of a niche, and one that Apple has mostly ignored throughout the short history of the Apple Watch. But now they’re firmly in Apple’s crosshairs, and it’s going to be interesting to see how things play out in that space in the coming years.