Samsung has a strong US market position, running mostly US-made software on hardware fabricated and assembled elsewhere.

At this point Samsung's phones are about as American as Google's or Apple's.

The OS on ph1 is ideal. I want zero crapware, and security updates, and for gods sake give me a headphone. That's going to be so rare it's going to be an actual competitive advantage. But at least no crapware is a big advantage.

I understand where you're coming from. Headphones are common! Let me use them, you assholes! And for love of fsck, no shitty vendor replacement for apps that are actually decent.

With all that said, it might be worth considering that recent events at Essential suggest that this might not be the significant competitive edge that might be hoped for. It's abstractly possible that our tastes in phones might not be an accurate reflection of the wider market.

Except for the fact that, you know, it's a Korean company... but sure.

How smartphones do Google and Apple actually produce in US?

So, I think I was misunderstood here... I only piped up because the GP explicitly said "US" in relation to a failing US based company. Saying that Samsung fills that gap makes no sense, regardless of where the phones are manufactured.

In one sense, you're absolutely right. It's a Korean-owned company and therefore obviously in no way American.

In another sense, the ownership of Samsung is irrelevant. The actual phones have roughly the same level of US-origin content and US-local labor as those phones famously labeled "Designed by Apple in California".