Samsung, India’s leading consumer electronics brand, today announced the expansion of its Samsung Care+ service to include extended warranty plans for home appliances including Refrigerators, Washing Machines, Air Conditioners, Microwave ovens, and Smart TVs.  Customers can now choose from plans that range from 1-4 years, offering comprehensive protection and convenience, with prices starting as low as INR 2 per day.

The upgraded Samsung Care+ service also introduce industry-first coverage for software updates and screen malfunctions (with no physical damage). This ensures that customers have complete peace of mind, not only for hardware issues but also for software performance and display concerns, making Samsung Care+ the most comprehensive appliance protection programme in the industry.

“We are committed to enhancing the customer experience, elevating home appliances ownership with unique benefits such as software updates and screen malfunction coverage, while expanding availability of Samsung Care+ extended warranty plans across all channels,” said Ghufran Alam, Vice President, Digital Appliances, Samsung India.

Built on the pillars of Expertise, Reach, Reliability, Speed, Smart Service, Protection, and Sustainability, Samsung Care+ provides consumers access to over 13,000 Samsung-certified engineers, 2,500+ service centres, and 100% genuine Samsung parts, guaranteeing timely, high-quality service. Customers will get multi-lingual support in nine languages, while the Samsung app allows customers to track services and receive timely reminders for scheduled maintenance.

Samsung, India’s largest and most trusted consumer electronics brand, today announced the 2022 line up of its widely popular Curd Maestro and Digi Touch Cool range of refrigerators with the launch of new India centric designs.

Curd Maestro, the world’s first refrigerator that can make curd, will now be available in Bouquet Silver, the industry’s first flower pattern design on steel finish and Mid Night Blossom. By going beyond food preservation to food preparation, these refrigerators address the pain points of daily curd making, and have been designed to revolutionize the conventional usage of a refrigerator. The process of curd making in Samsung’s Curd Maestro refrigerators is recommended by ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal.

Adding a pop of color, the 2022 range of Digi Touch Cool direct cool single door refrigerators will be available in new floral patterns – Urban Tropical and Hydrangea Pattern. Designed to offer more storage space and convenience, these refrigerators come with the patented Digi-Touch Cool 5-in-1 technology that empowers consumers to control their refrigerator settings with a simple touch without opening the refrigerator door and help save energy by retaining cooling.

“The newly launched flower pattern for our Curd Maestro and Digi Touch Cool refrigerators are designed keeping in mind Indian consumers’ preferences. While our aim is to equip our consumers with the latest technology that makes their lives simpler, these exquisite designs on the refrigerators have been crafted to give an aesthetic touch to their overall home décor,” said Mohandeep Singh, Senior Vice President, Consumer Electronics Business, Samsung India.

Price, Offers & Availability:

Curd Maestro and Digi Touch Cool 2022 range of refrigerators will be available across all the retail channels and on Samsung’s official online store Samsung Shop. The Digi Touch Cool single door refrigerator range will start from INR 18,690 and Curd Maestro frost free range will start from INR 27,990.

Consumers can get up to 15% cashback of up to INR 8,500, easy EMI options starting at just INR 990, and one EMI off on the new models.       

Curd Maestro: Innovation for Everyday Home

Curd Maestro refrigerator transcends the conventional refrigerator landscape in India beyond food storage and food preservation. Curd Maestro addresses the pain points of curd making process, which is complex, time taking, and tricky, yet an essential food ingredient in an Indian household. Curd Maestro, a local innovation by Samsung to address local needs, makes curd with the same consistency each time and eliminates all the hassle of curd making in different weather conditions.

The refrigerator enables curd preparation in 6.5 to 7.5 hours — 6.5 hours for soft curd, 7.5 hours for thick curd. One needs to boil and cool the milk and mix the curd culture manually while Curd Maestro does the most crucial part of the job — fermentation. It will not only ferment the curd but will store it too.

Digi-Touch Cool 5-in-1: Innovation Catering to Consumer Needs

The Digi Touch Cool 5-in-1 refrigerators come with 5 exceptional features:

Digital Control Cool Temperature Setting – Equipped with an advanced temperature control setting, users can easily control the temperature of their refrigerator based on varied seasonal conditions. Different levels of temperature points allow one to store their food optimally while meeting the changing season requirements.

Power Cool – Power Cool button on the Samsung Digi Touch Cool 5-in-1 refrigerator provides up to 53% faster ice making and 33% faster cooling. So, it is a convenient way for users to promptly cool and make ice on demand.

Eco Mode – The Eco Mode function adjusts the refrigerator’s temperature to approximately 6 degrees Celsius, saving 28% energy thereby reducing the running cost during winters, nights and when high grade cooling is not required.

Blackout Notification – In case the refrigerator temperature rises above 9°C due to power outage, the Black Out Notification feature will notify via flickering lights on the touch panel and the refrigerator will switch to Auto Express cooling to help consumers prevent food wastage.

e-Defrost – This built-in feature enables the user to defrost the freezer by the pushing the e-Defrost button for 3 seconds. It will instantly start the process of removing any ice on the freezer walls and evaporator, Once the defrosting process completes, it switches off automatically. Consumers can also stop the de-frosting process anytime by pressing e-Defrost on the touch panel for 3 seconds.

Despite being from Bihar, a rural province in northeastern India, Mayank Mohan was surprised how little he really knew about his home country before he joined Samsung. “I grew up in Bihar, and I went to university in Delhi, but that was it,” he said. “The first time I traveled by plane was when I came to Korea. The first time I saw the ocean was on that flight.”

After joining the Digital Appliances Business at Samsung Electronics as a product manager in 2010, he began to learn. Mohan was assigned to the product management team, developing refrigerators for India (along with Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka).

Learning About India as a Product Manager

As a product manager, meeting new people is an essential part of unlocking the nuances and patterns of the region, visiting people’s homes and getting feedback from business partners and local sales teams. Whereas once he had not really known India and perhaps taken it for granted, his job at Samsung quickly caused him to truly learn about his country and its great diversity.

Mohan soon discovered how something as simple as color can vary widely from area to area. In Mumbai, consumers prefer Western-style refrigerators, according to Mohan. In northern India, people prefer smooth, soft colors like silver. But in the south, dark colors do best, like wine red or green. In the east, more traditional colors are most popular. Pebble blue is liked around the country. Reds and fanciful colors are popular in general around India, so Mohan and Samsung tried unusual hues like rich yellow and light green, generating plenty of attention for the unconventional choices and further developing the market by experimenting with new possibilities.

Samsung was also a pioneer with patterns, offering colorful floral patterns on refrigerators since 2006. “Flower patterns, like on a woman’s sari, are appreciated on the refrigerator doors,” he said. And while other types of patterns have been tried, none have found the popularity of flowers. “We will keep trying to offer special designs that nobody else is.”

One of the biggest challenges consumers face around the region is irregular power supplies. To help consumers protect their food from spoiling when the power goes out, Samsung developed the Cool Pack for freezers, which at first were good for just an hour, but eventually improved to keep the freezer cold for 12 hours.

Understanding these needs and interests took countless hours of research, but Mohan saw how they are all important parts of localization. “India is a market that is still full of potential,” he said. “And localization is crucial to this market.”

Always on the Front Lines

Another difference around the region is how people use their refrigerators. In Bangladesh, where meat is a bigger part of the diet, larger freezers are necessary. But in much of India, people eat less meat, don’t eat ice cream or use ice often and prefer room temperature water. In visiting one home, Mohan noticed that the freezer was actually empty.

“The marketing team is always on the front lines…”

This simple observation soon led to another unique local feature. Mohan was dispatched to the local team for three months, and together they came up with a refrigerator that had what they termed a “Convertible” function. The top section of the refrigerator could be used to store frozen items or converted into a cooling area like the main compartment for keeping foods fresh.

It was an idea they developed in 2012, but even good ideas have to wait until the time is right to be implemented. Back then, the Convertible function was too expensive to support, however, the Samsung team has determined the market is ready now, so this new feature is giving consumers around the region a useful new option to suit their lifestyles with an affordable technology.

“The marketing team is always on the front lines in the market,” Mohan said. “As a product manager, I have to care for the product from birth to death. I have to ensure the right product will be available at the right time. The most important and difficult thing to find is ‘What is the right product and the right time?’”

Every Day Is a New Challenge

“I’m active. I hate routine jobs,” he said. “And one of the best things at Samsung, when you come in the morning, you don’t know how your day will end. I like the dynamism. Every day is a new challenge, a new task, meeting new people.”

“It’s up to me to be the initiator. I like that kind of empowerment.”

Since starting his career at Samsung, he credits the words of his mentor for his approach to work: “Be good and be seen.” “If you do good work, but nobody knows it, it doesn’t matter. But if you do bad work and everybody knows it, you’ll get fired. And if you don’t do good work and nobody knows, then you need a new job,” he said with a laugh.

For Mohan, the work and travel as a Product Manager is challenging, but he says he likes the energy of his job. “At Samsung, it’s up to me to be the initiator. I like that kind of empowerment.”

What’s Next?

The job of improving products is never done. Spending so much time with refrigerators has also helped re-inspire his own love for cooking, which in turn has helped him understand his product better. “With such a long connection with refrigerators, I know what to store where, for the best effect,” he said. “As a chef at home, I am really sensitive to how my refrigerator works, and it gives me many ideas to improve them and make them more user-friendly.”

Mohan said that cooking also helps him bond with his teammates and others, noting that his mushroom curry, fried rice and bhujia potato wedges are particularly popular.

“The IoT is going to change everything.”

But what really excited Mohan is the Internet of Things, which is coming to home appliances, including refrigerators. “For the last 100 years, home appliances haven’t changed that much,” he said. “You have cooling machines and heating machines and cleaning machines. But the IoT is going to change everything. What you’ve seen so far, it’s really just the beginning. Trust me, the changes in the next five years are going to be amazing.”