Samsung to offer festive discounts despite rising material costs: CEO

Samsung Southwest Asia CEO JB Park said the firm will absorb rising material costs as much as possible and offer interest-free EMIs and festive discounts to keep smartphones affordable in India

Samsung will offer affordable purchase options, including interest-free EMIs and festive discounts, as it looks to shield customers in India by absorbing the rising material costs "as much as possible", Samsung Southwest Asia CEO and President, JB Park has said.

Park said rising material costs have led to a 15 per cent degrowth in the Indian market in the first half of this year, and the second half is expected to be challenging with the memory chip crunch getting "severe".

"However, Samsung will try to absorb as much as possible, giving the best value of the product. During the coming festive season, we will try to provide affordable solutions to customers, whether it's interest-free EMI or a festive discount. We are focused on offering as much support as we can to consumers in India," Park said at a roundtable with Indian journalists in London.

 

The shortage of memory chips is due to constrained production capacity and increased demand amid the AI boom. Also, geopolitical factors have affected the supply of electronics raw materials. This has affected the prices of electronic devices, especially smartphones, which have risen by 20-30 per cent over the last six months.

Industry estimates suggest that memory costs are likely to stay elevated for 12-18 months, with no new significant manufacturing capacity addition expected during the period.

Last month, the South Korean technology giant announced the launch of its 8th generation of foldables -- Galaxy Z8, which are made in India. The Galaxy Z8 series phones are currently available for pre-order and expected to be available in stores from August 7.

With regard to artificial intelligence (AI) usage among Samsung customers in India, Park said it extends well beyond photo and video editing, with features such as AI-powered call noise suppression and local language support emerging as key use cases.

Park said one of the popular AI features developed by the company's R&D centres in Noida and Bengaluru is Voice Focus mode, which automatically detects noisy surroundings during phone calls and suppresses background noise without requiring users to manually enable the feature.

"The popular AI features used by Indian consumers are not limited to photo or video editing. One of the features built by our R&D centres in Noida and Bengaluru addresses the issue of background noise.

"When you take or make a call from an environment with loud noise, the Voice Focus mode detects and switches on the mode without the person having to manually change the setting. That's being managed by AI," he said.

Samsung has also been expanding Galaxy AI's language capabilities to cater to India's diverse linguistic landscape, with native Hindi and Gujarati speakers already using Galaxy AI features such as Call Assist and Interpreter, which are powered by the company's on-device AI technology.

"We are also working on expanding Galaxy AI's linguistic reach," Park said while responding to a PTI query at the roundtable.

Samsung's research centres in Noida and Bengaluru have played a "pivotal role" in the development of Galaxy AI and in improving the performance of AI features for Indian languages, Park added.

Samsung is focusing on on-device AI to help users access AI features directly on their phones, while improving privacy and reducing the need for cloud processing.