The rivalry between Samsung and Apple has been existing for years and both companies are working round the clock to make sure the other doesn’t have an edge. It appears that this “war” has now been taken to Regents Street, London, which is already home to Apple’s flagship store. Samsung is about to construct a 20,000 square foot showroom just up the road from Apple’s store on Regent Street. This showroom is located on the top floor of the Coal Drops Yard mall, a former Victorian coal store, which is still under construction. This building is not really a store as Samsung describes it as “a new kind of place filled with ideas, experiences and cutting-edge devices”.
This showroom, which hopes to attract similar interest as Apple’s Regent Street flagship store, will not open until October 2018. Samsung has a wide variety of products from smartphones to home appliance but it is believed that its Regent showroom will not prioritize home and appliance range but will rather display more mobile devices, such as smartphones, phablets, smartwatches, etc like Apple’s store.
Another manufacturing bigwig, Microsoft has confirmed its plans to open a flagship store on Oxford Circus, just a few feet from Regent Street (250 feet in fact). The unit to be used by Microsoft is currently occupied by United Colours of Benetton. Although Microsoft has bowed out of smartphone manufacturing race, it will still unleash laptops and tablets with the aim to battle Apple’s Macbook Pro.
There have been reports by analysts that online sales by digital retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Gearbest etc. would crumble conventional retail methods, but the concentration of stores/showrooms owned by these manufacturing giants in a small area shows that customers still believe in having a real feel of what they want to buy before making the purchase as opposed to buying everything virtually.
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