Harris Poll: Samsung's reputation drops to #49 among US consumers, from #3 in 2016, following Note7 fiasco, as Amazon tops list for second consecutive year
Korean smartphone maker ranks 49th in annual reputation ratings, after coming in third in 2016 — Samsung's reputation among US …
Context & Ripple Effects
Two years ago, Samsung was edging past Apple in smartphone consumer satisfaction and sat at No. 3 in the Harris reputation ranking; the Note7 battery failures have now erased that standing in a single polling cycle. The same survey has Amazon at No. 1 for a second straight year, a perch it would go on to keep through 2018 even as Apple slid to 29th and Google to 28th (the following year's edition showed just how volatile these rankings are).
First-order effects
- Samsung enters the post-recall period with its US consumer franchise damaged where it counts most for premium pricing: perceived trustworthiness, now ranked 49th against Apple's top-tier position.
Second-order effects
- Rivals can market against Samsung's safety record rather than specs alone, while Samsung must spend on recovery campaigns instead of feature differentiation to claw back rank.
Third-order effects
- The poll is emerging as an annual scoreboard where a single crisis produces a steep, measurable fall — a pattern Facebook would repeat when it dropped from 51st to 94th after its 2018 scandals — and Samsung's domestic troubles show the damage compounds across markets, as seen when carriers halved Galaxy S22 prices amid a reputation hit at home.
The trend: Annual consumer reputation surveys like the Harris and Axios polls are becoming the standard public ledger of how quickly corporate crises — from the Note7 to Facebook's scandals — translate into lasting brand-rank damage, with Amazon proving the durable exception.