This article was first published by The Korea Times in partnership with the South China Morning Post.
Samsung Electronics' move to integrate its latest flagship smartphones with Chinese search giant Baidu's artificial intelligence (AI) technology is diluting the interest of mainland Chinese consumers.
However, many Chinese consumers have expressed concerns on social media that the search functionality of the local version of the Galaxy S24 series may not be as good as the international version.
Weibo user “Sun Weilun” said, “The overseas version is a completely different world from the mainland version.” He visited a Samsung store in Hong Kong to test different models and found that the Baidu-powered “Circle to Search” feature returned far fewer search results than the international version supported by Google. I said I understand.
Richard Zhang, 30, a resident of Beijing, said he plans to buy the overseas version of the Galaxy S24 to receive the best AI service. “I started thinking about this because [mainland] The system recognizes Samsung's own phones as other brands. ”
Baidu is considered one of China's leading AI companies and was the first major Chinese technology company to launch its own ChatGPT alternative when Ernie Bot debuted in March 2023.
One of the big challenges facing Samsung is the rise of Chinese vendors, from Huawei Technologies to Oppo and Vivo, who are also releasing their own LLMs or integrating generative AI capabilities into their latest devices. I'm doing it.
“AI alone is unlikely to be the only driver of change anytime soon in the Chinese market,” said Ivan Lam, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research. But he added that the partnership with Baidu “demonstrates Samsung's commitment to long-term and consistent business in China.”
Samsung will price the S24 and S24+ in China by 500 to 800 yuan ($70 to 112) more than the previous S23 and S23+ models, according to a recent analysis by TechInsights wireless smartphone strategy analyst Peng Peng. It is said that he did. . By comparison, Samsung maintained the same price in the US and lowered its prices in Europe.
“Samsung does not seem to be competing intensively with domestic vendors on cost performance in the world's largest smartphone market,” Peng said.
