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In the past days there has been a lot of anger and frustration for Malaysian customers. If we have a look at the Internet and Social Media there is a lot of angry words and accusations spilled, and its nearly turned into an “Social Media Shitstorm”. Some of the frustration was for sure directed at Xiaomi, for having only 4000 Units of its MI 3 for sell. But while Xiaomi managed the anger very efficiently with announcing 6000 MI 3 Units for Sales, Samsung has not been that clever. There is even more anger now turned on Samsung Malaysia for their 50% off promotion for the Galaxy Note 3 Neo. 50% off on a device that just launched 1 month ago.

Samsung has been facing intense competiton lately from chinese smartphone manufacturers attacking the Malaysian market with their Hardware packed Smartphones for extremely affordable prices. There is Xiaomi on the one hand with their MI 3 launch, a 889 RM which has basically nearly the same specs as the S5. On the other hand there is Huawei with their 499 RM Huawei Honor 3C. Its sufficient enough to say Samsung Malaysia is facing trouble.

And now this. That the Samsung Note 3 Neo Promotion was a PR Disaster would be an understatement. With the NEO 3 Promotion Samsung probably tried to put their brand back into the spotlight after especially XIaomi got a lot of attention these past weeks, before their launch in Malaysia. And it could have worked, 50 % of on the Samsung Note 3 NEO is after all a great deal. But all turned bad on Samsung.

Check our Xiaomi MI 3 vs Samsung S5 Review 

But lets recap first what happened. Some days ago Samsung Malaysia announced that they would have a very special promotion for three days, starting yesterday: The Galaxy Note 3 Neo at only RM850 – that is a whopping RM849 off the RM1699 retail price. This was sure a very good deal for the phablet, even cheaper then the Xiaomi MI 3 with 889 RM. As with a lot of things in life, the devil lies in the details and the conditions that came with the promotion. They had only 1240 units available for this price in whole Malaysia, and each of the 62 outlets got just 20 each for sale with that special price.

The Announcement of the Note 3 NEO promotion gained a lot of attention with Samsung Fan Base in Malaysia, BEFORE the start of the promotion. Once again, this a once month premium Samsung Smartphone for 50% off. But its from there that all went downhill for Samsung Malaysia.

Malaysian Customers, coming very early in the morning to the Samsung outlets, only for an announcement that the Neo 3 units were all sold out, started the Media Shitstorm for Samsung Malaysia.

And there were indeed a lot of angry malaysian customers. A lot complained that the shops where they tried to buy had much lower stock of the Note 3 Neo then promised, while some even said that there was actually one outlet in WHOLE malaysia that sold the stock. And the anger didnt turn at the shops but it turned on Samsung, because the customers felt that this whole thing was a cheap Marketing and PR Stunt without much basis behind it.

And here comes the catch. We think the customers are totally right with that opinion !

Samsung did their best to communicate that there were indeed 1240 units available for sale for the 62 shops. The problem would be that they couldnt control who buys the stock, even with legal binding contracts. And so a lot of the shops bough the stock themselves, probably to sell them of at a later point with less discount. It would be easy to blame the whole thing on the shops here, but we wont go the easy way.

We think this whole thing is indeed Samsungs fault. Firstly 1240 Units for whole Malaysia? Seriously Samsung? Samsung announces three times less units then Xiaomi for a promotion like this and doesnt expect customers to get frustrated very fast? Secondly, this is not the first promotion that Samsung did in their brand history. Why would they sell those stocks offline, when they know they cant control the shops as in other promotions. They should have just sold online, with a big announcement like Xiaomi. Lastly, Samsung managed the whole Social Media Shitstorm very badly. They should have apologized fast and then get some more stocks to sell online, again like Xiaomi. It really seems that they can learn a lot from the Chinese Manufacturer when it comes to Marketing And Media Campaigns.

Overall there has been a lot of damage done to the Samsung Malaysia Brand these last days. Samsung was already under fire from Xiaomi and Huawei in Malaysia, but now they are one step closer to loosing that game. A failed PR Campaign like this, combined with average Sales of the Samsung S5, can bring a brand very quickly in a bad spot in Malaysia. The best thing that Samsung can do now is to apologize and get new stock, or they will be called “penipu scammer” for a long time.

Up to now Samsung seems like to have made no announcement to apologize on their Facebook Page officially – the Disaster goes on. What is your opinion?