Here's how much Samsung and LG spent on marketing in 2016

As the competition in the tech industry increases, companies have to spend a lot more money on marketing to convince consumers to buy their products. That’s exactly what Samsung and LG did last year, according to a report from Yonhap News Agency.

In 2016, Samsung spent 11.5 trillion Won (around $10 billion) on marketing its brand and products to consumers all over the world. The tech giant spent 4.4 trillion won (around $4 billion) of its marketing budget on advertisements, which is 15 percent more compared to the year before.

LG also increased its advertising budget last year by spending 1.3 trillion Won (around $1 billion), representing a 21.4 percent increase compared to 2015. The uptick in spending is said to be the result of Samsung’s renewed focus on promoting its smartphones and LG’s efforts to promote its high-end products.

Samsung had to spend a lot more money on marketing last year because of the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. The company’s reputation really took a beating because of its exploding phablet, which the tech giant tried to restore by releasing a few videos with the goal of letting consumers know that it is committed to making quality products. It also spent more money promoting its smartphones in hopes of making up for some of the lost sales of the Galaxy Note 7.

The report also states that both Samsung and LG will likely increase their marketing budgets again in 2017. We have already seen a few interesting commercials from Samsung this year as well as from LG, which aired the first G6 commercial a day before the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus were announced.