Samsung (NASDAQOTH: SSNLF), the South Korean technology giant, was fined $340,000 dollars by Taiwan for hiring students to bash competitors. Samsung responded that they were "disappointed" in the decision and reiterated their commitment to engaging in honest communication with their customers.
However, Samsung has a reputation of a company that plays fast and loose with the rules. In addition to these communication issues, it also engages in "benchmark targeting." In essence, optimizing their processors around certain benchmarks in order to make their performance appear better than it actually is.
However, all is not bad for Samsung; they reported selling 40 million units of their Galaxy S4 smartphone. If this number is to be believed, it is impressive for any smartphone manufacturer that operates Google's Android OS. Although that number is slowing, it is an impressive number in the first six months. How does it compare to Apple's iPhone 5 sales?
In this segment of Tech Teardown, Erin Kennedy discusses Samsung's positives and negatives with Jamal Carnette and Evan Niu, CFA.
