Fresh from its assertion that Starbucks coffee is overpriced in China – not to mention foul-tasting – China's state broadcaster CCTV has taken aim at Samsung over faulty chips in smartphones. A CCTV report found that its popular Galaxy handsets were crashing frequently. Bloomberg reports that Samsung, the top-selling handset producer in China, told CCTV that it was fixing the faulty phones for free. Another strike to CCTV, which has become a thorn in the side of foreign brands from Yum Brands to Apple. A parallel wave of government probes into price-fixing and backhanders by multinationals has also put them on guard.
Media exposes of poor service and ripoffs by consumer companies are populist fare in most countries, and China is no exception. Dirty slaughterhouses should be exposed, along with crashing phones (or healthcare websites). The high price of goods in China certainly annoys consumers, which is why CCTV seized on the different price for lattes in China and Chicago to try to show that Starbucks was profiteering (it claims that its margins are similar in U.S.) But let's face it, these campaigns are mostly froth. CCTV goes after foreign brands that can be shamed into kowtowing. Starbucks charges high prices for crap coffee. So do other cafes in China. But Starbucks is American, and so fair game for the party's broadcast monopoly.
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