This month Applehas achieved something almost as remarkable as transforming a phone into an iPhone. It has turned Samsunginto an underdog.

That takes some doing. Samsung, with its 220,000 employees and 83 business divisions, astonishingly accounts for a fifth of South Korean exports and has such an overwhelming presence in its home market it is described by one detractor as an “aggressive octopus”. To regard it as the plucky – albeit “copycat” – upstart is the equivalent of getting people to root for Goliath on the grounds that “a big man like that just doesn’t stand a chance”.

Clearly, in some consumers’ eyes, Samsung’s brand has been damaged by the unequivocal verdict of a Californian jury that it infringed several Apple patents. Some prospective buyers who had thought of Samsung’s Galaxy phone as a cool alternative to the iPhone may now regard it as a less desirable Korean knock-off. But the court of public opinion, as opposed to the one in San Jose, a few miles from Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, is just as likely to go the other way. Enrique Gutierez, a blogger, says that, based on his observations, people are wondering why they shouldn’t buy Samsung’s devices if they have rattled Apple so badly. “Best billion-dollar ad campaign Samsung ever had,” he said, referring to the size of the South Korean company’s penalty.