Samsung Galaxy S4: The Behemoth Rises and the Dinosaur Panics

So a little something called the Galaxy S4 launched. You can watch the launch event below.

Irrespective of what you think about the event or even the phone. You can't help but notice big Sammy's swagger. Swagger is important, as Seth Godin says for a company. It shows that the company knows what it is doing and has plenty of confidence in its offering.

The Smartphone Battle: Apple vs. Samsung

For Samsung it comes from the massive success of its earlier flagship phone the galaxy S3 which the S4 is replacing. It has sold nearly 50 million sets worldwide to date. Though that is not much if you look at the iPhone's figures (53 million sold in its first quarter alone, but this is all iPhone's combined not just iPhone 5 alone). But the thing to remember is Apple has only iPhone in its armory, but Samsung carries many arrows in its quiver.

In the cut throat Smartphone business, these are the only two players making any money. Apple taking a staggering 55% of the global profits and Samsung taking in an impressive 34%. Rest of the crowd is just feeding on leftovers. So its just Samsung and Apple battling it out for the no.1 position. Apple leads in profits and revenues , whereas Samsung leads in global market share. Samsung clearly has enough reasons to believe that it can usurp Apple as the numero uno. It is clearly evident  in the way it drives its marketing, taking pot shots at Apple and its core users time and time again. But Apple always concentrated on its own efforts, dismissing Samsung's taunts.

On the eve of the Samsung's new flagship phone, the galaxy S4. Apple's global marketing SVP Phil Schiller took pot shots at the Android ecosystem, claiming that its just a nice upgrade to a feature phone. But the kicker came just on the eve of the Galaxy S4 launch, Apple launched a webpage, titled "why iPhone" and lists down the reason why iPhone is the greatest thing since sliced bread and obviously not so subtly puts down the Android ecosystem.

With this one move, Apple has showed its cards. It is a defensive response to the growing threat of Samsung. For the first time Apple has acknowledged that a competitor exists. Make no mistake about it though, Apple is still the king of the jungle, for all the noise that Samsung generates, Apple still holds the crown of numero uno on the metrics that matter. But now it has a worthy adversary to contend with. Samsung is the only Android maker that makes tons of cash and has left all its competitors behind to stand tall against Apple. The battle lines are drawn, as these two heavyweights slug it out, trading blows in all areas, be it profits, revenues, market share and now we can add Marketing to that mix too.

Let's get ready to rumble.