Samsung’s TV business launches customer marketing team

South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. is putting into action an age-old mantra that reflects the importance of customers in its business: “Customer is king.”

Samsung said on Thursday it recently reorganized its TV business to set up a customer marketing team, spun off from its Strategic Marketing Division, to strengthen its sales and marketing efforts for individual consumers, separate from corporate customers.

The new marketing team will work out strategies to increase sales via online channels, including Samsung.com, while the existing division will be in charge of overall TV brand planning, marketing and overseas sales support, it said.

Vice President Park Cheol-woo will head the customer marketing team. He joined Samsung three years ago after working as an executive at Mattel, the US toy company known for its Barbie dolls, for years.

The move comes as part of Samsung’s efforts to increase sales through enhanced customer engagement under the leadership of Vice Chairman and Co-CEO Han Jong-hee, the company said.

DIRECT TO CUSTOMER CENTER

Last month, Samsung hired Kang Shin-bong, former chief executive of Yogiyo, Korea’s second-largest food delivery platform, to lead its online sales and marketing push as vice president.

He was recently named to head Samsung’s newly established Direct to Consumer (D2C) Center under the company’s Global Marketing division, tasked to strengthen its brand value via direct online sales channels.

According to London-based market tracker Omdia, Samsung was the top TV vendor with a 30.2% market share in value terms at the end of September, poised to retain its market dominance for the 17th straight year in 2022.

Industry data showed more than two-thirds of premium TVs sold worldwide are made by Samsung and its crosstown rival LG Electronics Inc.

LG controlled 17% of the global TV market in the first nine months of 2022, followed by TCL (9.3%), Hisense (8.6%) and Sony (8%), according to Omdia.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.