This article was first published by The Korea Times in association with the South China Morning Post. Samsung Electronics’ integration of its latest smartphones with artificial intelligence (AI) from Chinese search giant Baidu has caught the attention of Chinese consumers. The South Korean firm’s China division and Baidu AI Cloud announced a strategic partnership at the end of January, where the Samsung Galaxy S24 series sent Baidu’s Ernie, a large language model (LLM) and search engine, to support mobile AI search functions after its debut in the US and before its release in China on January 25.
Many Chinese consumers expressed concerns on social media that the Galaxy S24’s flagship model may not be as good as the global model. “Overseas is a very different world from the mainland,” said Weibo user “Sun Weilun,” citing differences in the “Circle to Search” feature powered by Baidu compared to Google’s results. Beijing resident Richard Zhang mentioned that he considered buying a foreign version of the Galaxy S24 to access the best AI functions after observing that the mainland version recognizes Samsung phones as a different brand.
Baidu is recognized as one of the top AI players in China and the first tech company in the country to launch its own ChatGPT platform with the introduction of Ernie Bot in March 2023. However, it faces competition from Chinese vendors like Huawei Technologies, Oppo, and Vivo, which are also releasing their LLMs or integrating AI products in the near future, according to Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Research. He also noted that Samsung’s partnership with Baidu demonstrates the company’s commitment to long-term operations in China.
In China, Samsung priced the S24 and S24+ between 500 yuan to 800 yuan (US $70 to US $112) higher than the previous S23 and S23+ models while keeping the same price tags in the US and reducing prices in Europe. This led Peng Peng, a wireless phone industry analyst at TechInsights, to observe that Samsung may not be very competitive with domestic vendors in terms of value for money in the world’s largest smartphone market.
