That’s according to Chinese website The Paper, which reports that Samsung paid around 500 people to attend the event, most of whom were iPhone users.
A person specialising in recruiting the ‘fans’ told The Paper that he brought over 100 people to the event, each of whom were paid ¥20 (£2.15) for hanging around at the Galaxy S6 launch for more than an hour.
One woman, hired by Samsung directly, told the Chinese news outlet that she was paid ¥50 (£5.40) for spending more than 15 minutes at the event.
Other ‘fan’ recruiters, including Samsung, paid another 400 people to wag their tongues in front of the Galaxy S6. The ‘fans’ accounted for around half of the 1,000 people at the event.
The Paper reports that attendees were told to inform any inquiring reporters that they were interested in Samsung’s new phones, and to post their photo, name and phone number on popular messaging platform WeChat and to ‘like’ the Samsung Galaxy page on Chinese social network Baidu.
Samsung perhaps forgot one important requirement: to advise these ‘fans’ to leave their iPhones at home.
The report claims that ‘half’ of the roped-in attendees were caught snapping pictures of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge using an Apple smartphone.
Samsung, perhaps unsurprisingly, has yet to comment on the report. However, the firm’s motives may be down to its dwindling market share in China thanks to the growing popularity of the iPhone.
Kantar Worldpanel ComTech recently claimed that iPhone sales in China reached a new high between December 2014 and February 2015 after Apple claimed 27.6 percent of the market.
This isn’t the first time that Samsung has found itself in such a situation. The firm was fined $ 340,000 in 2013 for faking online comments bashing Taiwanese rival HTC. µ
Samsung allegedly hired 500 'fans' for Galaxy S6 launch in China - Inquirer
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