Selling more phones would not necessarily mean making more money from phones.
I accept that they are not necessarily losing money from phones (although where I live they're definitely spending a lot of money marketing that curved screen phone which I'm yet to see anybody use/own/like).
According to Mashable, "Meanwhile, Samsung's profit from its smartphone division likely declined from a year earlier even as the company's handset shipments are believed by analysts to have gone up. That's partly because one of Samsung's most expensive smartphones, the Galaxy Edge with a curved display, is lagging in sales because of production constraints. A large chunk of Samsung's handset sales came from its mid- to low-end smartphone models that were not as profitable as Apple's iPhones."
I think there mobile division had several straight quarters of decline and in July the WSJ reported that their performance was "disappointing."
It's almost like Samsung is becoming just another generic vendor in the high-end Android smartphone market. It almost seems like they are living off of the halo effect of their previous successful marketing campaigns but I'm not sure brand loyalty is as high with Samsung as it with Apple.
I agree... there's a bunch of 'high end' Androids out there and the features usuall include a bigger screen, more RAM, more CPU cores and higher clocked CPUs. Samsung ran out of gimmicks so used a bit of curved glass (which hasn't really caught on).
As a long-term Apple fan (since 1984) I still like Apple's vision, even though I feel it has changed - in particular in order to sell units in the Chinese market. To me this makes their products less personal and gives them more 'gimmicks' and 'bling' rather than unique features and style. However, I'm loyal to Apple.
Same-song? I have a Same-song fridge because it was the cheapest available that didn't have reviews saying it fell apart in 6 months. It's an okay fridge, but I don't really see Same-song as a creative, high-end brand that wows me in any way.
iPhones are getting bigger and I'm pretty sure that if the keep going the way they are, I'll one day have to ditch Apple (like I did with my Pebble smart watch... really wasn't an Apple Watch fan). Who will I go for? Can tell you one thing - not Samsung's marketing tactic of 'our screen is bigger and curved'. I'll go for innovation and style. Android OS hasn't impressed me in that field, nor have any of the phones. TBH if I changed, I'd be looking at Ubuntu, Firefox, Windows or some other less widely used mobile OS. But, it's Apple or 'the others' wither way... I don't think anybody will go for 'Same-song or the others'. They'll pick Same-song because it's heavily marketed, cheap (probably comes free with a plan) and is tries its hardest to market an Apple-like product (the ads and slogans are regularly identical to Apple's). Meh...