Galaxy S22 price reduced in Samsung's home country amid GOS controversy
Samsung's last two Galaxy S series phones, the S20 and S21, didn't perform per expectation, so it must be a relief for the South Korean behemoth that its 2022 flagship, the Galaxy S22, is off to a good start. This happiness may be short-lived though as it appears that Samsung's game optimizing service (GOS) app has started jeopardizing sales volume.
GOS is not a new app but it attracted attention this year because Samsung had made it impossible for consumers to turn it off after the One UI 4 update. The app was meant to prevent Samsung phones and tablets from overheating during intense gaming sessions, but it was found to be limiting the performance of 6,800 non-gaming apps as well, such as Microsoft Office and LinkedIn.
On top of that, benchmarking apps which are used to assess and compare performance were not impacted by GOS, meaning they were overstating the performance capabilities of Samsung's devices.
The company responded by rolling out an update that lets you turn off GOS. Despite evidence to the contrary, it is still adamant that GOS only controlled the performance of gaming apps.
Some fans and authorities may pursue legal action against the company and benchmarking platform Geekbench has delisted four of its phones.
Korea Times reports that there are signs that the GOS controversy has dealt a blow to the popularity of the Galaxy S22 series, which is one of the best smartphone ranges of the year.
Mobile carriers in South Korea have raised their subsidies for S22 phones by up to 500,000 won (~$411) to boost sales, which means the base model is now retailing for nearly half the price it was at launch. Per a Samsung spokesperson, the amount of subsidies was jointly decided by the company and mobile carriers. He stopped short of acknowledging that the prices have been lowered because of the GOS saga, pointing instead to the state of the broader market.
The report quotes an anonymous official at a mobile carrier as saying that the GOS issue has indeed impacted demand for the S22 but added that there has not been a significant decline in sales volume. That seems to suggest that Korean carriers have proactively reduced the price to prevent the demand from slowing down substantially.
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