Samsung halts product shipments to Russia

Samsung has stopped shipping its products to Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine, the company told Bloomberg News. The tech giant said it’s monitoring the “complex situation,” and that it’s donating $6 million, which includes $1 million worth of consumer electronics, to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. According to the publication, the shipment suspension affects all Samsung products, including its smartphones, chips and other consumer electronic devices. 

By halting all exports of its products to Russia, Samsung has joined the growing list of companies that had paused sales of products and services in the country. Apple halted all product sales in response to the invasion and after receiving a request from Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. The company also limited Apple Pay, pulled the apps for Russian state-backed media outlets from its store and disabled traffic data for Maps in Ukraine to avoid putting residents in danger. Microsoft suspended all new sales of products and services in Russia, as well. 

The Korean tech giant is the top smartphone brand in the country and has a 30 percent market share, according to Counterpoint Research data. That’s much higher than Apple’s 13 percent market share, as of the fourth quarter of 2021. In addition, Samsung has a TV plant in Russia, though it’s unclear if it has also stopped production in the factory.

Its decision to halt shipments to Russia comes after Fedorov sent Jong Hee Han, the CEO for Samsung’s SET division, a letter similar to what he sent Tim Cook. In it, he asked the Korean tech giant to stop supplying the country with its products, as well as to block Samsung Pay, Samsung Galaxy Store and Samsung Shop.

As Bloomberg notes, South Korean smartphones were an exemption to the export bans recently imposed by the US government. But even if Samsung did want to continue shipping products to Russia, it would have a hard time sending products to the country anyway due to airlines and shipping services halting their activities in the region.

Samsung will add phone performance throttling controls through an update

Samsung will at least partly address complaints that it’s throttling the performance of apps on some Galaxy phones. As The Vergereports, the company has promised an update to its Game Optimizing Service to give users more control over throttling. In a statement to Engadget, Samsung said the option was coming at an unspecified point in the future in response to both feedback and “careful consideration.” You can read the full statement at the end of this article.

However, Samsung disputed claims GOS was throttling as many as 10,000 apps across numerous categories. The service “does not manage” apps beyond games, the company said. Users have accused Samsung of throttling the performance of non-gaming software like Netflix and TikTok while disabling the restrictions for benchmarks like 3DMark and GeekBench, skewing expectations for real-world speed.

GOS is now known to be present on the Galaxy S22 series. While the exact range of phones with GOS isn’t clear, the software is known to exist on older phones like the Galaxy S21 lineup and S20 FE.

Samsung isn’t alone. In 2021, OnePlus admitted that it throttled the OnePlus 9 while popular apps were in use. This was ostensibly meant to preserve battery life, but didn’t include benchmarks. Huawei, Oppo and other phone makers have been caught cheating on benchmarks in the past, but those methods relied on ramping up performance when a test app was in use, not slowing down for other apps.

It’s difficult for phone vendors to completely avoid throttling. Chips like the Galaxy S22’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Exynos 2200 can run hot, and Samsung even introduced vapor chamber cooling to the S22 to manage that heat. As Apple learned years ago, though, at least some users want more control and transparency for throttling — they’re willing to sacrifice battery life and heat to see devices reach their full potential.

“Our priority is to deliver the best mobile experience for consumers. The Game Optimizing Service (GOS) has been designed to help game apps achieve a great performance while managing device temperature effectively. GOS does not manage the performance of non-gaming apps. We value the feedback we receive about our products and after careful consideration, we plan to roll out a software update soon so users can control the performance while running game apps.”

The biggest MWC 2022 news you might have missed

We’ve come to the end of Mobile World Congress 2022, which, despite the pandemic and a war in Europe, went on as planned. While it’s typically a show full of phone launches from companies like Sony, Huawei, TCL, Xiaomi, Oppo and more, this year there w…