Marketing was the 'main reason' for Samsung success last year: here is the mind-boggling amount it spent

There are three huge things that happened in mobile in the past few years. First, Apple changed our perception of a smartphone with the launch of the iPhone in 2007, then Nokia could not react in time and lost its long-held leading position, and third Samsung started growing like a snowball. Fast forward to today, and Samsung is the world’s biggest smartphone and overall phone manufacturer, a hugely profitable company driven by booming sales of its Galaxy S and Note flagship lineups.

But it is not just the devices - marketing has an equally important role in Samsung’s success as the company spent a mind-boggling $11 billion on marketing, nearly ten times more than it spent on R&D in 2012 (it was $1.06 billion for R&D).

All of that spending came despite the ‘thermonucleal’ legal war going on when Samsung knew it could suffer financially if Apple won.

“Samsung’s focus on marketing was the main reason the company was so successful last year,” an anonymous source inside Samsung said.

Moreover, this marketing warfare is not likely to stop as long as the Galaxy device continue selling well.“With its strategic Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note smartphones selling tens of millions, the company doesn’t care too much about allocating a gigantic marketing budget," the Samsung source added.

source: Korea Times

Earlier estimates of Samsung marketing spending.