Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S24 smartphones are displayed at a store in Seoul, Wednesday. AP-Yonhap
The latest partnership between Samsung Electronics and Baidu on the Galaxy S24 series might hardly help the Korean smartphone giant regain its lost market share in China, according to consumers and analysts, Thursday.
On Jan. 25, Samsung's China division and Baidu AI Cloud announced a strategic partnership on AI ecosystems for the Korean company's latest handsets, which were first unveiled in California on Jan. 17 and launched in mainland China on Jan. 25, with functions tailored for the Chinese market.
The move marks Samsung's latest attempt to attract the world's largest smartphone market with advanced generative AI functionalities, including real-time call translation and a “Circle to Search” feature that enables users to search for text, images or videos via hand gestures.
Many of the functions, based on the capabilities of Baidu's search engine and large language model (LLM) Ernie, are aiming to provide similar services to Google's Gemini AI technology, which Samsung is working with to power the Galaxy S24 series globally. Google's services are officially unavailable in China.
However, the series has so far drawn little interest among mainland consumers. Within the first week of the release, many took to social media to express their concerns that the mainland AI functions are not ideal.
“The overseas version is a completely different world from the mainland version,” said a Weibo user with the handle Sun Weilun, who said he had visited a Samsung store in Hong Kong to test the models. For instance, the “Circle to Search” feature powered by Baidu provides much fewer results than the overseas version powered by Google, he added.
Richard Zhang, a 30-year-old resident in Beijing, said that he is planning to buy an overseas version of the Galaxy S24 to get the best of the AI services. “I started considering this after I saw the [mainland] system recognizes Samsung's own phones as other brands.”
Still, Baidu might be one of the best choices that Samsung can turn to for China-developed LLMs, as the search engine and internet firm is viewed as a major player in Chinese tech companies' race to launch their own ChatGPT-like services.
Baidu was the first major tech firm in China to launch its own AI chatbot, Ernie Bot, in March 2023. Last September, it unveiled the latest version of its LLM, Ernie 4.0, which is said to be “by no means inferior compared to OpenAI's GPT-4” in generalized abilities.
Senior executives at Baidu and Samsung Electronics China shake hands at an event announcing the two companies' partnership, Jan. 25. Courtesy of Baidu and Samsung
The partnership with Baidu, or the entire Galaxy S24 series, might hardly help Samsung make a big change in the Chinese market, where the company saw its share slump from 20 percent to less than 1 percent over the past decade.
A major pressure that Samsung is facing in China is the rise of domestic vendors, and the battle now has also extended to the AI ecosystems. Samsung's latest attempt at AI came as major Chinese smartphone makers — from Huawei to Oppo and Vivo — are all rushing to release their own LLMs or integrate generative AI features in the latest handsets.
"Within the Chinese market, AI alone is unlikely to trigger immediate changes," said Ivan Lam, a senior analyst for Counterpoint Research, while adding that the partnership "signifies Samsung's dedication to long-term, consistent operations in China."
At the current stage, there are no apparent major influencing factors that suggest a “significant shift in Samsung's market standing in China,” said Lam.
Peng Peng, an analyst for wireless smartphone strategies at TechInsights, noted in a recent report that Samsung had set the prices for S24 and S24+ in China around 500 yuan ($70) to 800 yuan more expensive than S23 and S23+ models. In comparison, it maintained U.S. price tags for the latest series and reduced their prices in Europe.
“It seems Samsung is not intensively competing in terms of value for money in the world's largest smartphone market with domestic vendors,” Peng said.
Ann Cao is a tech reporter with the South China Morning Post. She is currently based in Seoul, reporting for both The Korea Times and the South China Morning Post under an exchange program.