After the second world war, Japan took an unlikely approach to improve its economy.
Japan’s geography isn’t that great for agriculture, it isn’t oil or mineral-rich, and it’s a rugged country. Thus they shifted the entire nation’s mindset to produce high-quality products in every category.
They raise the best cow breeds in the world. Kobe and Wagyu beef are famous for their superior tastes. Japanese Mango, strawberry, watermelon, grapes, koi fish, etc.; everything is very high grade.
Similarly, Japanese technology is of the highest quality in the world. Sony, Toyota, Honda, Casio, Canon, Panasonic, Nikon, Nintendo, etc., are known for high-quality tech products.
On the contrary, Chinese products aren’t that excellent. Every product made by a Chinese company without the explicit direction of an American company is of inferior quality.
Japan has a culture of innovation. However, Chinese companies and governments explicitly steal and copy other countries’ technology.
South Korean products fall between Japan and China.
Samsung is a South Korean company. Even though they innovate many things, their quality control is poor. Their focus on long-term customer satisfaction is negligible.
Too many products
Apple’s primary product is computer hardware and software, Tesla makes cars, and Google works in the search and advertisement business. In contrast, Samsung is involved in many sectors such as shipbuilding, semiconductor, medical, financial, construction, advertising, electronics, etc.
Samsung appliances such as dishwashers, freezers, washing machines, dryers, TVs, Galaxy phones, laptops, ovens, SSDs, Displays, etc., are made by Samsung Electronics (SEC).
Samsung Electronics has multiple CEOs who are responsible for different electronic products. Therefore, too many managers are focused on their sales performance rather than supporting customer satisfaction.
The higher management is concerned with how many appliances they sell in a quarter. Once a product is sold, whether it’s returned or being serviced repeatedly isn’t reported in the quarterly financials.
Every year, Apple makes a handful of iPhones and Macs. At the same time, Samsung releases 15 to 20 types of Galaxy phones.
Moreover, they also make numerous types of toilet bidets, dishwashers, freezers, dryers, washing machines, ovens, TVs, SSDs, Laptops, RAMs, and other things.
It’s nearly impossible for upper management to track each product type and collect user feedback for quality control.
Quantity Over Quality
Samsung’s internal corporate culture revolves around “quantity over quality.” There are multiple CEOs and numerous engineering, production, sales, and marketing managers worldwide, each vying to outdo others to produce extraordinary sales figures to please upper management. When sales numbers get priority, productivity goes downhill.
The culture of good quality products and customer satisfaction doesn’t exist at Samsung.
Two times Samsung tried to make a mobile operating system for its phones but failed. They recalled and discontinued the Galaxy Note 7 for fire hazards; stopped supporting and making the Gear VR headset. Moreover, their mobile Exynos processor is notorious for draining phone batteries and becoming hot. And their convection ovens, freezer, dishwasher, and dryers fail due to quality issues.
It’s not a fluke. Samsung has a quality issue. There’s no doubt that Samsung makes good quality displays, but their appliances are terrible.
Monopoly
Similar to China, Samsung’s most significant advantage is its manufacturing prowess. However, it’s also the source of the problem.
Worldwide, China has flooded the market with cheap products, destroying local businesses and manufacturing facilities. But it is well known that Chinese products are inferior and don’t last very long.
Similarly, Samsung has flooded every country with its products. Even though their products aren’t that inferior compared to Chinese products, still their products aren’t as high quality as the Japanese brands.
Samsung is known worldwide due to its flashy design, ubiquitous presence, advertisement, and name recognition. Samsung has flooded every appliance category with numerous models. Thus, it already has a monopoly in South Korea and worldwide.
Samsung Online Reviews
Online product reviews should be taken with a grain of salt, whether from Consumer Reports or professional YouTube reviewers.
These reviewers use the Samsung product only for a few days or for a week most of the time. These are never representations of actual product use. Even if a reviewer gives a Samsung dryer five stars, it doesn’t mean that product will survive ten years of ownership. But we know that Samsung dryers will fail within a few years.
Quality Will Not Improve
Samsung’s appliance quality has degraded over the years. It’s a mistake to purchase Samsung’s products nowadays. Let’s look at a few examples showing Samsung is plagued with quality issues, but they aren’t doing anything about it.
Every Samsung Galaxy phone becomes hot while playing games, recording videos, or other processor intensive work. Whereas an iPhone never gets hot. Moreover, every Samsung Galaxy phone is infested with 3rd party bloatware.
Samsung knows that their phone gets very hot during use but has failed to fix it for over a decade. Moreover, these phones become painstakingly slow after several years, and Samsung doesn’t provide any updates after only 18-24 months.
Every Samsung freezer that makes ice has severe issues where the ice maker freezes entirely or fails to make ice cubes. It’s a widespread issue, but Samsung has never addressed it. Moreover, the Samsung freezer compressor often fails.
Frequent failure of the thermistor, heating element, thermal fuse, and drum pulleys on the Samsung dryer is common. Samsung uses very low-quality parts to make their dryers.
Warranty is no good for these appliances. Samsung changes its appliance models so fast that most of the time, required parts are unavailable or must be shipped from South Korea. Moreover, even if Samsung provides free appliance parts, an owner is required to pay the labor cost.
Bottom Line
If you are on the market for appliances and have alternatives, try to purchase alternative brands. For example, if you have a budget and want to buy a phone, buy an iPhone instead of a Samsung Galaxy, purchase a Maytag washing machine and dryer than Samsung’s washer and dryer, buy a GE freezer than Samsung’s freezer, buy a Frigidaire oven than Samsung.
Samsung has quality control issues. Over the years, it got worse. If some Samsung owners tell you that their washing machine is working perfectly after 10 years, then that owner is an outlier.
