Rihanna signs Samsung deal for $25m

Samsung struck a deal on the weekend to sponsor Rihanna’s upcoming eighth album Anti and world tour.

It’s estimated to be US$25 million, one of the biggest deals ever. But the 27-year old Barbadian virtually guarantees the commitment. Rihanna has sold over 54 million albums and 210 million songs worldwide since her career began ten years ago.

Her Diamonds world tour of 2013, behind the Unapologetic album, which visited Australia, grossed US$137.9 million from 87 shows. It was the fifth biggest global tour of that year.

Talks began seven months ago with Samsung by her Roc Nation record label chief Jay-Z and her manager Jay Brown. But Rihanna album kept being delayed as she reworked some tracks. In fact, she’s still feverishly working on it to get it out in the next few weeks. She’s also set to star in French filmmaker Luc Besson’s movie Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets.

Samsung had also worked with Jay-Z before in a marketing deal surrounding the release of his Magna Carta Holy Grail album. In return for $5 million, Jay-Z provided Samsung 1 million copies of the album to be downloaded on its devices.

The South Korean electronics company is eager to use Rihanna videos to sell its Milk streaming service and Galaxy smartphones. How the TIDASL service, in which she’s a shareholder, fits in with these plans remains to be seen. 

But it is expected Rihanna will play a major role in the promotion of the latest Galaxy S7 flagship smartphone due out next January. Analysts note that Samsung does not usually release new product so early in a year, so possibly it might be timed to coincide with a world tour.