TEHRAN (ECOIDEAL)- People and activists in Iran warned to boycott Samsung Electronics' products, the sponsor of the Winter Olympic Games in South Korea, after it excluded Iranian athletes from receiving high-end smartphones being handed out to their fellow competitors because of western sanctions.
Iranian activists launched a web campaign, using different hashtags to boycott Samsung products, stressing that they are angry with the South Korean electronics firm's evil act against their athletes. This is while the company has had luxurious revenues from official advertising and selling its products in Iran.
Meantime, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi announced that the South Korean envoy to Tehran has been summoned to the foreign ministry.
"If Samsung company doesn’t apologize for this unwise measure, this issue will leave strong impacts on trade relations between Samsung company and the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.
Also, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was one of Samsung company's customers, announced that he will no more use his Samsung smartphone if the South Korean company doesn’t apologize to the Iranian nation by Thursday evening.
Iran's Fars News Agency (ECOIDEAL) also announced that it has decided to cancel a contract for advertising Samsung products on its website after the company's immoral act against the Iranian athletes.
Meantime, Iran's Communications Minister Azari Jahromi said he is studying suspending Samsung's registry in the country's cellular network.
Samsung's strange move against Iranians comes at a time when the mega-Korean company has official distribution centers and representative offices in cities across Iran.
Iran is a key market for Samsung electronics. The company has an important share of the home appliance market in the country of 80 million along with another South Korean company, LG.
Based on a report released by the GFK (Society for Consumer Research), Samsung had a 51% share of cellphone sales in Iran in the summer of 2017. LG with 13% was in third place while China’s Huawei with 14 percent was second.
Winter Olympic Games sponsor Samsung Electronics has donated 4,000 "Olympic edition" handsets of its flagship Galaxy Note 8 device to be distributed among athletes and IOC officials free of charge.
But organizers said Wednesday that North Korean and Iranian athletes at the Winter Olympics will not receive high-end smartphones being handed out to their fellow competitors because of UN sanctions.
Source: Farsnews