Koreans ditching Galaxy phones for iPhones over the gaming controversy

Samsung has a solid and loyal customer base in its home country of South Korea. As it’s the country’s largest conglomerate, and one of the most innovative companies in the world, citizens rightly view it as a matter of pride to support this homegrown behemoth.

However, that still doesn’t give Samsung a pass to pull a fast one over its customers. A rather interesting video from South Korea shows that the entire GOS controversy that unfolded earlier this year made many people switch from a Galaxy device to iPhones.

GOS episode made customers ditch Galaxy phones for the iPhone

First, a refresher on the whole controversy. It emerged in March this year that Samsung was throttling over 10,000 apps and games on its devices through a software called Games Optimization Service. What GOS does is reduce the GPU and CPU performance when it detects any of the apps or games on the list being run.

The list conveniently left out benchmarking apps which meant that Samsung phones would post high performance scores that wouldn’t be representative of real world performance. This lead to Geekbanch banning Samsung phones with GOS.

Samsung claimed that the main purpose of GOS was to prevent the device from overheating when performance intensive apps and games are used for extended periods of time. It later released a fix that added a button in the Game Booster app which allowed GOS to prioritize maximum performance for all apps and games.

A Korean YouTuber took to the streets in Seoul to ask citizens about the phone they’re using and whether they’d prefer a Galaxy phone over an iPhone. It’s also pointed out in the video that the rate of people in their 40s switching from a Galaxy device to an iPhone has seen a double-digit increase recently.

The trend that elevates the iPhone’s status as a device in the rest of the world has seem to made it to South Korea as well. One person responds that they were swayed by the memes that say you’re less hip if you’re using a Samsung phone compared to an iPhone. Another preferred the camera capabilities of the iPhone more.

One person who was actually on the way to the Apple store highlighted the GOS controversy as the reason why they switched from their Galaxy device to an iPhone. With younger South Koreans largely being avid mobile gamers, it’s understandable that the entire episode didn’t sit well with them and dented their trust in Samsung.

It doesn’t matter if Samsung eventually offered a fix that should have been there from the very start. Only when what GOS was doing came to light and there was significant criticism did the company decide that it would finally let customers experience the full power of the devices they had purchased.

While it’s difficult to say precisely how many customers Samsung may have lost as a result of this controversy, this won’t mean the end of its dominance in South Korea. Samsung’s ecosystem is solid in its home country. The relationships and partnerships that it has with carriers and retailers also ensure that it continues to thrive even in the face of rising iPhone popularity.