科技媒体最喜欢有故事可写。而它们最爱的故事莫过于势均力敌的两家公司之间的竞争。双方不断推出新产品或新功能，努力将对方比下去。一个典型的例子是微软（Microsoft）和苹果（Apple）之间持续了数十年的技术竞赛，正是它成就了今日的硅谷。

    智能手机兴起之时，几大移动操作系统制造商之间的激烈竞争已经得到了详细的记录。诺基亚（Nokia）和黑莓（Blackberry）等早期领导者被苹果的iPhone和谷歌（Google）的Android迎头赶上。同时，微软使出浑身解数，只为保有一席之地。如今，这个故事已经过气，而且成了一笔算不清的糊涂账——Android的市场份额更大，但苹果公司的利润更高，那么，到底谁是赢家？——在智能手机领域，新的剧情正在上演。故事情节是这样的：“苹果彻底变革了智能手机领域，独占鳌头长达五年之久，直到人们对iPhone审美疲劳，这时，新的竞争者——三星（Samsung）登场了。

    但这场竞争不仅牵涉市场份额和利润，更关乎消费者的喜爱。三星或许已经在手机市场占据了很大的份额，但它的品牌还远远不能媲美苹果。（与谷歌的Android不同，作为一家老牌消费电子产品制造商，三星一直以来都需要花费大量资金来支撑自身的品牌。）

    随着三星异军突起，成为最成功的Android手机制造商，这几年这家公司渐渐成为苹果的竞争对手。广告平台Millennial Media跟踪来自Android手机制造商的移动广告曝光次数，结果发现，三星设备在Android手机的总曝光次数中所占比例已经从2011年的23％上升到了2012年秋天的46％。从Millennial Media的数据来看，三星抢夺了宏达电（HTC）、摩托罗拉（Motorola）以及LG的市场份额。

    三星的人气主要源自Galaxy S系列。2010年6月，首款GalaxyS系列手机面世以来，这个系列手机的发货量已经超过了1亿部。Galaxy顶级Android手机的性能和功能都在不断完善。去年iPhone 5发布时，许多评论人士认为，虽然iPhone 仍然是市场上最好的智能手机，但它的竞争优势正在减弱。

    Galaxy S4于本月发布，虽然它要到今年5月才会上市，但目前它的试用测评褒多贬少。S4某些速度和性能指标要比Galaxy S3以及iPhone 5高出一倍。自Galaxy S4发布以来，科技博客和金融分析师们的讨论大多围绕着三星叫板苹果的这款最新力作展开。在谷歌搜索中，Galaxy S4被搜索的频率已经与iPhone 5旗鼓相当。

    许多人突然开始仔细审视三星。这家公司的全名是三星电子，它是韩国巨头三星集团的旗舰子公司，而三星集团的业务范围从酒店到寿险到造船业可谓无所不包。去年，三星电子营收达到了1,810亿美元（约合201万亿韩元），经营利润为260亿美元。相比之下，苹果上一财年的营收为1,560亿美元，经营利润为550亿美元。

    三星电子近一半的收入来自手机事业部。这个部门最近一个季度的营收为250亿美元，较去年同期增长了58％。手机部门是推动三星公司整体增长的引擎。过去一年，手机部门占三星电子营业总额的比例从36％上升到了49％。而移动事业部，还包含平板电脑和Note手机等产品，占公司经营利润更是高达62％。

    The technology press loves a good narrative. And among the most beloved narratives is a good horserace. Two rivals striving to better each other with new products or new features. The archetypal tech rivalry, between Microsoft and Apple not only lasted for decades, it helped make Silicon Valley what it is today.

    During the rise of the smartphone, the great horserace between mobile operating-system makers has been chronicled in great detail. Early leaders like Nokia (NOK) and Blackberry (BBRY) gave up the lead to Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and Google's (GOOG) Android. Microsoft (MSFT), meanwhile, struggled mightily just to stay in this race. As that story has grown stale and a little muddled -- Android has the bigger market share but Apple has the bigger profits, so who's really winning? -- a new narrative is emerging in the smartphone space. It goes like this: Apple revolutionized and dominated smartphones for five years before iPhone fatigue set in. Now it faces a new contender: Samsung.

    But this horserace isn't about just market share and profits, it's about capturing consumer love. Samsung may have gained a lot of ground in the mobile market, but it still has a ways to go before its brand can rival Apple. (Unlike Google's Android, Samsung is an established manufacturer with a consumer brand it spends heavily to support.)

    The rise of Samsung as a rival to Apple has been coming for a couple of years, as Samsung emerged as the most successful manufacturer of Android phones. Ad platform Millennial Mediatracked mobile-ad impressions from Android-phone manufacturers and found that Samsung devices rose to 46% of total impressions last fall from 23% a year earlier. By that measure, Samsung was stealing share from HTC, Motorola, and LG.

    Much of Samsung's popularity has centered around the Galaxy S series, which has shippedmore than 100 million units since the first Galaxy S launched in June 2010. Top Android phones like the Galaxy line have been improving in speed and features. When the iPhone 5 launched last year, many reviewers felt that even though it remained the best smartphone on the market, its competitive edge had eroded.

    This month saw the introduction of the Galaxy S4, which won't arrive until May but has already received mostly positive "hands-on" reviews. Some speed and performance benchmarks rate ittwice as fast as the Galaxy S3 as well as the iPhone 5. Since the S4's introduction, much of the discussion among tech blogs and financial analysts has centered around this new horse Samsung as it charges on Apple's heels. Google searches on the Galaxy S4 have already become as frequent as those for the iPhone 5.

    Suddenly, many people are taking a closer look at Samsung, which of course is really Samsung Electronics, the flagship subsidiary of the Korean conglomerate active in everything from hotels to life insurance to shipbuilding. Last year, Samsung Electronics made $181 billion (or 201 trillion won) in revenues and $26 billion in operating profit. Apple, by contrast, had $156 billion in revenues and $55 billion in operating profit in its last fiscal year.

    A little less than half of Samsung Electronics' revenues come from its mobility division, which brought in $25 billion in revenues in the most recent quarter, a 58% rise from a year earlier. Mobility is the engine for the company's overall growth. In the past year, the division has gone from 36% of Samsung Electronics' revenues to 49%. The mobile division, which also includes tablets and phones like the Note, accounts for 62% of the company's operating profit.

    三星的崛起非比寻常。要知道，就在十来年前，这家公司还默默无闻。三星过去也对抗过索尼（Sony）等曾经的电子巨头。后者上世纪八、九十年代在消费电子领域可谓风光无限。与索尼等日本公司不同，三星明显斗志旺盛、野心勃勃，三星董事长曾当着2,000名工人的面，烧毁了所有有瑕疵的手机。

    三星从廉价空调和低端电视机起家，随后扩张至芯片制造业，如今它已成为世界最大的内存芯片供应商，在闪存芯片领域，它也是主要的标准制定者。过去十年，三星大肆扩张，挺进大屏幕电视、液晶显示器和手机等多个领域。三星在这些领域就算现在还不是领导者，也正在成长为领导者。

    三星的企业DNA无疑是“深耕技术”。即便Android手机生产厂商众多，但三星非凡的技术功底使它在智能手机市场独占鳌头。当然，三星在工业设计领域同样出色，它在美国市场的品牌效应要比日本竞争者高出不少。

    今天，三星在消费电子领域面对的竞争者不再是日本公司，而是苹果。最近一段时间，一系列负面消息让苹果的光环效应蒙尘不少。例如苹果地图问题不断、iCloud业务发展不畅、向来稳定的高管团队出现改组，拳头产品iPhone的竞争力有所减弱。而股价不断下跌、净利润率下滑、投资者对股息等问题怨声载道，苹果的公众形象这段时间褪色不少。

    而三星正在抓住这个机会，利用苹果的低潮期来巩固自身实力。三星已然将自己定位成苹果的替代者，在GalaxyS3手机的宣传片中，它尽情嘲笑苹果死忠们。这些人过去一直招人烦。凭借异乎寻常的嗅觉，三星能准确预测苹果的下一步计划：苹果不是在搞智能手表吗？三星也在搞。苹果不是在研发低价iPhone和平板吗？三星当然也有。

    现在的苹果颇有些手忙脚乱。这家公司向来以言语刻薄著称，经常将竞争对手驳得体无完肤。但面对三星最新产品GalaxyS4，苹果只在官网上放了一篇吹捧iPhone品牌的文章，而苹果高管在点评GalaxyS4的缺陷时，还出现错误。这不禁让我们想到了前苹果高管吉恩-路易斯•卡西的评论，“苹果失去了话语权，别的公司开始成为领导者。”

    在消费者忠诚度方面，三星仍然难以媲美苹果。目前，苹果与三星相比有一个巨大的优势，就是它数十年来逐渐建立的独特品牌。虽然最近有些麻烦，但苹果的品牌仍然要比三星成熟得多。品牌管理顾问公司Interbrand对三星品牌的全球排名是第9名，较之三年前的第19名有大幅上升，但苹果仍然稳居亚军宝座，仅次于可口可乐（Coca-Cola）。

    三星标榜自己叫板苹果这一招没多久就会失灵。三星需要的不仅仅是被视为设计最佳的Android手机的制造厂商。一个品牌最强大的时后，人们会对它产生依恋，把它看成对自己身份的表达。而就三星GalaxyS4发布会拙劣的超现实主义效果（跳踢踏舞的小孩！歌剧手套！一辆Mini Cooper横在台上！）来看，三星仍然在苦苦探索自己的品牌形象。

    不光是科技媒体，众多消费者也乐于坐山观虎斗，特别是因为，他们觉得谁输谁赢自己说了算。但威胁苹果领先地位的新对手——三星的本质到底是什么？回答这个问题将是三星的下一个挑战。（财富中文网）

    译者：项航

    Samsung's ascent is remarkable given its humble image even a dozen years ago. The company struggled against onetime electronics giants like Sony (SNE), the premier brand in consumer electronics in the '80s and '90s. In contrast to Sony, Samsung had a distinctly un-Japanese spirit of scrappy gumption -- its Chairman once burned an entire inventory of defective cell phones in front of the 2,000 factory workers who built them.

    Starting off as a maker of cheap air conditioners and low-end TVs, Samsung expanded into chip production until it became the largest maker in DRAM chips as well as an innovator in flash memory chips. Overt the past decade, the company has pushed aggressively into large-screen TVs, flat-panel displays and cell phones -- becoming a leading if not the leading manufacturer in each market.

    Samsung's DNA has always been deep in engineering. In a market where there are multiple companies making Android devices, it was that engineering prowess that pushed its smartphones to the head of the pack. In the past decade, Samsung has put an equally strong emphasis on design, which has made it a more prominent brand in the U.S. than any Japanese competitor.

    Today, it's not Japanese companies but Apple that is the consumer electronics brand to beat. In recent months, a number of things have taken some of the shine off Apple's brand: Mishaps like the Apple Maps brouhaha, growing frustration with iCloud, reshuffling of longtime top execs, and the erosion of the iPhone's competitive edge. A flagging stock price, sagging profit margins, and investor grumpiness around dividends have added to Apple's public-image troubles.

    Not missing its chance, Samsung is stepping in to make Apple's moment of weakness its own strength. Samsung has shrewdly positioned itself as the Apple alternative, with Galaxy S3 commercials that mock the cultish Apple fanboys who have annoyed so many people over the years. Samsung is nimbly anticipating Apple's moves: Apple is working on a smart watch? So is Samsung. Apple is producing lower-priced phones and tablets? Get in line, right behind Samsung.

    Apple isn't helping its case either. The company used to hurl snide rebuffs at competitors that stung. But its reply to Samsung's new rivalry is a page touting the allure of the iPhone brand, and inaccurate comments from a top executive about flaws in the Galaxy S4. That error prompted former Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassée to declare, "Apple has lost control of the narrative; the company has let others define its story."

    Samsung still has its challenges in trying to beat Apple for consumers' loyalty. Apple has, for now, one strong advantage over Samsung -- its distinct brand, which it has built up for decades. Even with its recent troubles, Apple's brand is substantially more developed than Samsung's. Interbrand ranked Samsung the No. 9 brand in the world, up from No. 19 three years earlier, but Apple is still ranked No. 2, behind only Coca-Cola (KO).

    Being the anti-Apple won't work for Samsung much longer. The company needs to be seen as more than the maker of the best-engineered Android phone. When brands are most powerful, people attach to them as an expression of their own identities. Judging from the ham-fisted, surreal press event (Tap-dancing kids! Opera gloves! Sideways Mini Coopers!) to introduce the Galaxy S4, Samsung is still struggling to define that image.

    It's not just us in the tech press, consumers in general enjoy a good horserace, especially when they can feel like they've picked the winning horse. But what exactly defines this new rival that is threatening to take the lead from Apple? Answering that question is Samsung's next challenge.