HTC-Samsung feud spills over to Twitter; LG plays peacemaker

It’s no secret that there’s no love lost between Samsung and HTC. First, HTC didn’t shy from taking pot-shots at the Samsung Galaxy S4’s design. Then the company accused the Korean chaebol of paying students to write bad reviews of the HTC One in Taiwan. Samsung promptly pulled the reviews and issued a public apology.

Not great advice for HTC and Samsung

However, things remain bitter between the two companies and now the companies’ UK teams have taken things to the next level after a spat on Twitter. It all started when HTC UK tweeted about winning the "Hottest phone of 2013" award at the Mobile Awards along with a picture of the ceremony. That itself was not a contentious issue, but the tweet came with the punch line: “Ouch @SamsungMobileUK”.

Naturally, Samsung UK wasn’t about to let HTC get away with this "slight" and retorted with a snide tweet of its own. “@htc_uk That's okay guys, our arms were full with the other three awards we took home last night. You can have that one!”

This prompted HTC to fire another salvo: “@SamsungMobileUK all those students you paid to write fake reviews of your competitors finally paid off. Pay rise, maybe?”

Before things could turn uglier, LG’s UK Twitter team chimed in with a picture of Michael Winner telling HTC and Samsung to "calm down dears, it's only a mobile phone." Winner is a British film personality and food critic and his line from an insurance ad is, it turns out, something of a catchphrase in the UK.

Despite its good intention and the clearly more funny tweet, we can’t help but feel LG ruined a good ol’ bickering match by stepping in. We would have given anything to know more sordid details of Samsung and HTC’s torrid relationship. Check out the entire back-and-forth below: