Samsung has denied a report claiming it paid 500 people to attend a press conference for the
Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge in China last Friday. It is claimed the manufacturer tried to increase interest in the flagship smartphones at the event by hiring stooges to make up half the 1,000 people in the audience, all in a bid to improve its presence in the country.
A report from the Shanghai-based
Paper spotted by
the WantChinaTimes claims the paid fans were recruited for looking like students and to be younger than 30, and earned 30 yuan ($8.40) each if they stayed for more than an hour, with the recruiters receiving 20 yuan ($4.80) for each person they hired. Groups of 20 to 30 "professional fans" were also apparently hired as part of the effort, required to register their name and number to the Samsung Galaxy fan page on the Baidu forums, as well as posting their picture.
One paid professional fan told the report they were paid 50 yuan ($8.10) to take part in the press conference and stay more than 15 minutes at the event. They were also instructed to tell reporters they were there because they were fans of the company or interested in the new phones. Over half the attendees under the paid fan scheme apparently took photographs of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge using iPhones, indicating their affiliations may be elsewhere.
A
statement from Samsung calls the report "totally groundless and bogus," with its own investigation finding "under no circumstances has anyone been hired or given money to attend the event." The outlet that broke the story later retracted the item, with Samsung considering whether to take further action by asking for a correction to be issued.
In recent quarters, Samsung has found the Chinese market to be troublesome. In February,
IDC noted the smartphone market share of the manufacturer in China has dropped from 18.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 down to 11 percent by the third quarter of 2014, and ending up at 7.9 percent at the end of last year. In terms of rankings, Samsung moved from the top to fifth place in the space of a year
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