Samsung’s Galaxy S10 5G arrives on Sprint tomorrow

You surely know the whole deal about carts and horses by now. When Samsung’s first 5G handset, the Galaxy S10 5G, arrives on Sprint tomorrow, users will be able to get those blazing fast mobile speeds in all of four markets: Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Kansas City.

Those all launched last week, after the arrival of the carrier’s first 5G handset, LG’s V50 ThinQ. The good news is that a number of the biggest cities in the country will be getting coverage in “coming weeks,” including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington D.C.

Samsung’s 5G phone hits Verizon, Sprint getting two 5G devices this month

The other good news, I guess, is that you can still use the phone in the rest of the country, albeit with 4G speeds. Of course, with an eye-popping unlocked starting price of $1,300, you’re probably not going to want to spend much of your time on LTE with the rest of us peasants. For those who prefer not to pay all up front, plans start at $40.28 a month.

Sprint joins Verizon and AT&T, which got the 5G Galaxy back in May and June, respectively.

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Samsung exec says the Galaxy Fold is ‘ready to hit the market’

As we asked back in February, “We’re ready for foldable phones, but are they ready for us?” The answer, so far, has been an enthusiastic, “not really.” The Galaxy Fold was pushed back after multiple review units crapped the proverbial bed. And just last week, Huawei noted that it was holding off on its own Mate X release, citing Samsung’s issues as a cautionary tale. 

Samsung, at least, may finally be ready to unleash its foldable on the world, two months after its planned release. “Most of the display problems have been ironed out,” Samsung Display Vice President Kim Seong-cheol told a crowd at an event in Seoul this week, “and the Galaxy Fold is ready to hit the market.”

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: future shock

The company’s no doubt waiting for a more formal announcement to release specifics on timing. Samsung has been promising release news “in coming weeks” for several weeks now. Understandably, the company hasn’t been rushing to get the handset back out. As bad as the press was the first time around, Samsung doesn’t want a repeat here along the lines of the Note 7’s two recalls.

When announcing the initial delay, Samsung announced two points of failure: a screen protector that looked like the temporary ones other devices ship with and large holes between joints in the hinge that allowed detritus to sneak behind the display, causing issues when users applied pressure to the front.

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Netflix reveals the top TVs it thinks you should use to binge watch in 2019

Netflix has a tradition, in practice since 2015, of annually proclaiming which TVs, of all the TVs in the land, are best suited to serving you its content. The streaming company’s criteria for determining ‘best’ is different from what you’d expect from The Wirecutter or Consumer reports – but if you’re a Netflix ride-or-die level fan, they might be the only criteria you really care about.

Without further ado, here’s the list of 2019’s Netflix Recommended TVs:

• Samsung Q60R/Q70R/Q80R/Q90R/Q900R series, RU8000, The Serif and The Frame devices
• Sony BRAVIA X85G/X90G series and A9G series
• Panasonic VIERA GX700/GX800/GX900 series

That list may seem short, and it is, relative to the number of TVs on the market that offer Netflix directly on device. But Netflix points out that the list can grow throughout the year depending on device and software update availability.

If, like me, you are an informed consumer who does a lot of research before making a large purchase like, say, a big-screen TV, you might be curious at the omission of LG’s OLED series, the 2019 iteration of which came to market just a couple of months ago. For a possible answer, let’s take a look at the criteria Netflix uses to make their list. (Note: I asked Netflix directly about LG and they provided a generic answer about brands dropping from the list year-to-year on occasion based on criteria and performance requirements).

Essentially, landing an official Netflix nod means that a TV can provide its user access to Netflix “within just a few seconds,” that it allows you to “quickly and easily” navigate between different apps, that it provides access to the most up-to-date version of Netflix, and that it gives you access to all Netflix’s laters features “for a better browsing experience.” In total there are 7 criteria, and a TV must meet 5 to be eligible for a Netflix recommendation.

Demo of how much faster Netflix loads on TVs that use the company’s ‘Always Fresh’ background activation feature. Bottom screen is with ‘Always Fresh’ active.

One criteria that’s new this year might be the one that’s put the ‘Recommendation’ out of reach for LG and webOS – it’s called ‘Always Fresh,” and it requires that a TV keep Netflix awake for an occasional background refresh, meaning it’s always primed and ready to go, with more or less instant playback regardless of network connection speed.

It’d be easy to knock Netflix for making this one of the conditions of receiving its recommendations (which are based solely on testing and meeting its standards – the company told me no money changes hands in this program), but it’s not barring companies that don’t meet these criteria from offering its service. And it’s using its market weight to help motivate TV makers to provide an experience that will genuinely be better for consumers.

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AT&T cancels Samsung Galaxy Fold orders

AT&T has cancelled early orders for the Samsung Galaxy Fold.

Tom’s Guide first reported the cancellation, noting that AT&T said the Galaxy Fold would be available again to order as soon as Samsung announces a new launch date. AT&T is also offer $100 in credit to those whose orders it has cancelled.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold was originally scheduled to launch on April 26. However, early reviews indicated that there were issues with the phone, which Samsung initially said was the fault of reviewers. The company eventually decided to postpone the launch and get back to the drawing board.

Earlier this week, a Samsung rep told Cnet that it would announce timing on the nearly $2,000 phone “in the coming weeks.”

However, AT&T’s move here suggests that it may be a while before the Galaxy Fold resurfaces, if at all.

Samsung itself asked customers who pre-ordered to confirm that they still want the device following the review period. On May 24, Best Buy cancelled all pre-orders of the phone.

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Verified Expert Growth Marketing Agency: Ampush

Customers have described Ampush as the “McKinsey of growth marketing,” and in many ways, it’s apt. Ampush has a relentlessly quantitative, full-funnel approach to growth marketing, and they’ve built proprietary software to back it up. Co-founder and CEO Jesse Pujji explains why Ampush exclusively works with direct to consumer companies, and why they went from serving 100 companies in 2015 to forming deeper partnerships with less than 20 companies today.

On Ampush’s evolution

“From 2011 to 2015, we were one of a handful of companies that could do Facebook really well, although that’s all we did.  As a result, we ended up working with a ton of growth brands and Fortune 1000 brands, like Dollar Shave Club, Uber, Stitch Fix, and all of these direct to consumer brands and businesses.

By 2015, we realized, “what got us here won’t get us there,” and so we started to question how we would evolve our offering and our company. Just doing Facebook would be okay, it would be good, but it wouldn’t be great, and we always said, “We want to be really great.”

Advice to early-stage founders

“Amazing at testing, measuring and iterating. Very quality and long term focused.” Katia Beauchamp, NYC, Co-founder & CEO, Birchbox

“It’s important for a founder to understand the right metrics and what levers can be pulled because they’re going to need to understand it to keep growing their business. I typically recommend that one of the founders spend 50% of their time for 90 to 180 days with one or two contractors who really know the technicalities of Facebook and Google you don’t have to learn those if you’re a founder, but you do want to understand which copy is resonating, which creative, which audience, etc.  It takes a founders’ level of depth to crack the nut, and then Ampush can come in.”

Below, you’ll find the rest of the founder reviews, the full interview, and more details like pricing and fee structures. This profile is part of our ongoing series covering startup growth marketing agencies with whom founders love to work, based on this survey and our own research. The survey is open indefinitely, so please fill it out if you haven’t already.

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Interview with Ampush CEO & Co-Founder Jesse Pujji

Yvonne Leow: Tell us about your journey. How did you find yourself working in growth?

Jesse Pujji: I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. My dad was an immigrant so I learned early on how to also be a small business entrepreneur. I was always running a snow-shoveling business, a lemonade stand business, a DJ-ing company. We cornered the Indian DJ-ing market in St. Louis. It turns out there weren’t a lot of Indian DJs in Missouri!

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Is your event strategy paying off? How to calculate your event ROI

US/China trade uncertainty adds to global smartphone growth woes

Analyst Canalys has updated its forecast of global smartphone shipments — saying it expects just 1.35 billion units to ship in 2019, a year-on-year decline of 3.1%.

This follows ongoing uncertainty around US-China trade talks and the presidential order signed by Trump last month barring US companies from using kit by Chinese device makers, including Huawei, on national security grounds — which led to reports that Google would withdraw supply of key Android services to Huawei.

“Due to the many uncertainties surrounding the US/China trade talks, the US Executive Order signed on 15 May and subsequent developments, Canalys has lowered its forecasts to reflect an uncertain future,” the analyst writes.

It says its forecast is based on the assumption that restrictions will be stringently applied to Huawei once a 90-day reprieve which was subsequently granted expires — the temporary licence run from May 20, 2019, through August 19, 2019 — making it difficult for the world’s second largest smartphone maker by sales to roll out new devices in the short term, especially outside China, even as it takes steps to mitigate the effect of component and service supply issues.

“Its overseas potential will be hampered for some time,” the analyst suggests. “The US and China may eventually reach a trade deal to alleviate the pressure on Huawei, but if and when this will happen is far from clear.”

“It is important to note that market uncertainty is clearly prompting vendors to accelerate certain strategies to minimize the short- and long-term impact in a challenging business environment, for example, shifting manufacturing to different countries to hedge against the risk of tariffs. But with recent US announcements on tariffs on goods from more countries, the industry will be dealing with turmoil for some time,” added Nicole Peng, Canalys VP, mobility, in a statement.

It expects other smartphone makers to seek to capitalize on short term opportunities created by the uncertainty hitting the Chinese tech giant, and predicts that South Korea’s Samsung will benefit the most — “thanks to its aggressive device strategy and its ability to quickly ramp up production”.

By 2020, it expects the market to have settled a little — with active contingency plans to be in place in major mobile supply chains and channels to “mitigate Huawei’s decline”, as well as gear up for 5G device rollouts.

Canalys takes the view that 5G and other hardware innovations will be positive drivers for consumer demand — expecting smartphone shipments to return to soft growth globally in 2020, rising 3.4% to 1.39BN, albeit with some subtle regional variations that it says will allow some to recover faster than others.

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