Samsung jumps the shark with fake news

Samsung just released a press statement declaring its Galaxy S7 edge as winning the best smartphone award at Mobile World Congress 2017. That didn’t happen. This is what really happened, and Samsung should retract this press release as it’s misleading and disingenuous.

GSMA is the trade organizing that hosts Mobile World Congress and every year they host an awards ceremony for achievements of the past year. So for this year’s awards, the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge was nominated alongside the iPhone 7 Plus, Pixel Xl, Huawei P9, and the Moto Z. The Galaxy S7 edge won The Best Smartphone 2016, which makes sense.

But that’s not what Samsung said in a press release.

Samsung stated “The Galaxy S7 edge Named Best Smartphone at MWC 2017.” Or, said a different way, never mind our terrible showing at the world’s largest mobile show; the S7 is the best phone here!

Samsung didn’t launch a phone at this year’s Mobile World Congress like LG, Motorola, Huawei, BlackBerry and Nokia. Instead, Samsung is holding a massive event in New York City at the end of March to announce the Galaxy S8. At MWC Samsung announced two tablets.

I argued yesterday that Samsung doesn’t need MWC anymore. The company can command enough attention from the industry that it doesn’t need a trade show audience to launch a device.

We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment.