Indian retailers are staging a three-day nationwide boycott on selling Samsung mobile devices in response to the firm’s exclusive discounting deals with e-commerce operators.
The All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA) has arranged the Samsung boycott at brick-and-mortar outlets following several rounds of unanswered communications with Samsung country heads extending back over the past five years.
“We will be showing our protest through digital posts, covering Samsung branding with a black cloth in our stores, and not doing business with Samsung distributors for three days,” said AIMRA president Arvinder Khurana, adding that Samsung representatives had neither met with leaders of their organization nor responded to emails.
The association has been working to end deep discounting and cashback offers for e-commerce mobile retailers and has drawn guarantees of fair pricing across channels from Vivo, Oppo and Realme.
Samsung is “adamant and underestimating the power of offline,” said Khurrana. “They are the only brand with M Series exclusive tie-up and now to grab our customers they have also tied up for a cashback offer through Amazon Pay … Such activities have caused great damage to us but the brand does not seem to be interested in working with offline traders.”
Industry commentators have noted that the move will heavily impact Samsung’s revenues and shake consumer confidence in the brand.