KOLKATA: Guess who else is following
Tim Cook's passage through India closely? Samsung Electronics, according to several people aware of the matter. With India emerging as the next big battlefield between the arch rivals, the South Korean company has been taking careful note of the Apple CEO's itinerary to get a sense of the plans that the maker of iPhones and iPads may have, apart from any alliances that Cook is looking to forge.
Daily reports are being sent to South Korea on where he's going and whom he's meeting along with commentary on the strategy that Apple may be looking to follow in order to maximise business.
Samsung has formed a team comprising executives across functions to track
Apple. The handheld products (HHP) business, which comprises mobile phones and tablets, has been entrusted with helming the exercise. "Updates are being sent on Cook's moves, both through email and WhatsApp," said one of the people cited above. "Samsung headquarters is extremely keen to know as much detail (as possible) since this is one of the longest visits which Cook is doing in any country recently and is tapping all possible sources for information."
"We strongly deny this. This is groundless and absolutely incorrect," said the Samsung Southwest Asia spokesperson in response to emails from ET.
Cook who landed in India on Tuesday night has had a hectic schedule in Mumbai and Hyderabad before flying off to Kanpur on Thursday to watch an Indian Premier League cricket match between the Gujarat Lions and Kolkata Knight Riders. The visit is likely to last all this week and a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled for Saturday in New Delhi. He met top Reliance Industries executives on Wednesday and has agreed to forge partnerships with Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Retail for devices and implementing an enterprise solution developed by Apple and IBM, ET reported on Thursday. Samsung is also looking to forge a partnership with Reliance for selling its handsets through Jio's network and launching its mobile payment service Samsung Pay, sources said. Others Cook met included Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry, ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, Vodafone India CEO Sunil Sood and TCS CEO N Chandrasekaran.
The global corporate rivalry between Apple and Samsung is among the most intense in recent times, with both firms regularly suing each other over patents and other matters, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on legal bills each year.
The two have been fighting for supremacy in the premium smartphone segment in India, but the stakes are becoming higher considering that the country is set to overtake the US to become the second-largest smartphone market.