Opening in April
These 60 Samsung stores should open in April, with 10 to 15 planned in Great
Britain and the rest spread over Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, the
Netherlands and Spain. The Korean electronics giant already had a pilot project with three stores in Spain last
fall.
The Samsung Store will have smartphones,
tablets, laptops and ‘wearables’ on sale, televisions and household
appliances will not be sold. The fast pace of openings is because pretty much
every Samsung Store will be created in
former Carphone and PhoneHouse stores. There are plenty of those, as the
group has more than 2,000 points of sale.
“This is an important alliance playing to both companies’ strengths.
Together we will create a powerful new
retail concept to showcase, for our customers, a wide range of products,
content and services as well as injecting
both investment and new jobs into the retail sector”, Andrew Harrison,
Carphone CEO, said.
Direct attack on Apple Store
Samsung, the number one in smartphones, is opening the attack on its main
rival Apple with this large and speedy expansion. Apple currently runs 98 Apple Stores in 8 European countries, with 38 in Great Britain.
It is no surprise that Samsung is gunning for these Samsung Stores,
especially considering the Apple Stores results: they generate
about 14 billion euro in yearly
turnover and more cash per square meter than
any other retail chain. 114
million people visited an Apple Store in the past quarter, a dazzling 21,000 potential buyers per week per store.
