The massive, glitzy Broadway production which Samsung staged when it announced its latest handset in the Galaxy line - the Galaxy S4 smartphone - led to a controversy of sorts over the company's supposedly sexist product releases.

Earlier, before the Galaxy S4 launch event, Samsung landed in the middle of a controversy over the way in which it treats women during its new-product announcements. The controversy was rooted in the fact that, at a South Africa press event on March 14, the company had bikini-clad females dancing around its newest refrigerator models.

With the audiences at the Samsung Africa Forum 2013 being somewhat taken aback by the Las Vegas-style electronics press event, and with the Galaxy S4 launch being an equally surprising spectacle, tech journalists ridiculed Samsung and slammed it as sexist.

In the wake of the unintended publicity drummed up by the South Africa press event, which could have been a typical press event had there not been the scantily-dressed women dancing around the electronics products, Michelle Potgieter - the head of marketing and communications at Samsung South Africa - issued an apology for the controversy surrounding the event.

In the apology, Potgieter said that "it has come to our attention that, following recent Samsung events, there was dissatisfaction by the use of the selected promotional/entertainment ladies to unveil and demonstrate the new line up of product/s;" and added that the company did not, in any way, intend to "isolate or offend" its audiences through these events.