Cars and smartphones have many things in common. Parents allow children to use them when they think it’s suitable. Both products can be bought on instalment. Yet, there is something very different about them — you can at least do some basic self-repairing when a car begins to play up but not phones. There has been a worldwide move towards self-reparability because replacing phones is costly and it’s not good for the environment.
Samsung is already offering a selfrepair programme in the US and a few other countries, like South Korea. What about India?
TM Roh, president and head of Mobile eXperience Business, Samsung Electronics, knows sustainability is crucial and self-reparability is an integral part of it. “Samsung is planning to introduce the programme to India,” he told The Telegraph during a conversation at Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (SRI-B).
“Self-reparability is one of the focus areas of Samsung. A self-repair programme has been implemented in the US and a few other countries, like Korea. We are preparing to introduce it in more countries. It is important to give customers an option to repair their devices and we have to prepare well before rolling out the programme.”
The youngest president ever appointed at Samsung is right when it comes to planning. He doesn’t want users to end up with a poorly-planned programme. “Self-repair is not just about giving a choice to customers; once the programme is rolled out the customer should be able to do it efficiently. So preparing for the programme is important,” he said.
Self-reparability and sustainability can’t be seen in isolation.
Samsung is working towards applying recycled materials to all Galaxy products and also elimination of plastic from product packaging. “Sustainability is applied not just in Samsung mobiles but across products. We are focussing on developing eco-friendly materials. We are also focussing on energyefficient materials. For example, we are expanding the usage of recycled materials. Ocean-bound plastics have been used. Natural materials have been used for the back glass,” said Roh, who develops and drives strategies to progress innovation in the industry.
Samsung is well-established in every smartphone category. Even though Apple’s share in the premium category is increasing, Samsung too is doing well.
“Samsung is proud to understand the Indian market and the Indian customer better than any other company. Our strategy to increase our premium market share in India is to understand the needs of the Indian customers and their content creation experience and the features that enable that. We understand Indian customers better because we have our biggest R&D centre (outside South Korea) here and our design centre in India,” he said.
