Samsung Profits Tumble as Apple Enters Large-Screen Phone Market and Low-End Options Thrive

[GadgetSN]

Pure and simple...stop making fugly phones. I thought the S3 was the ugliest phone ever designed until the S4 came out. Likewise I thought nothing could be as ugly as the S4 but then the S5 arrived.

Samsung know they need to up their designs hence the Alpha and Note 4. However whilst a massive improvement the Alpha still feels and looks a little cheap. I therefore expect the Note 4 to feel similar.

At least Samsung puts decent processors and ram in their high end products. However with the laggy touchwiz they have proven their phones still are inferior even with the best components.

The Note 4 is no where as good enough aesthetically. Samsung need 2 or 3 years until their designs get to a mass acceptable level.

 

[OC40]

"Corporate Karma" if I've ever witnessed it.

Investors should ask: "WHY THE F ARE YOU IMBECILES STILL AIRING THE SAME APPLE ATTACK CAMPAIGNS, SAME SLOGAN, SINCE 2011?! YOU'RE MAKING APPLE MORE VALUED! STOP BULLYING AND LEARN FROM THEM!"

Those investors only have five shares of Samsung, but have 3,000 shares of Apple...

 

[Iconoclysm]

Desperation spurs innovation. Hopefully this lights a fire under Samsung's engineers.

Hopefully that fire burns them to cinders.

 

[512ke]

Samsung is suffering multi quarter declines but they keep just doing the same thing. Copy Apple. Release a new version of old products. Run attack ads against Apple. Guess what? It's not working.

Samsung needs to change its game. They were on the right path getting rid of their biggest weakness, Android, until Google stomped them into submission.

Samsung is making less and less money selling more and more phones. Samsung needs the high end. Think different. The answer for them should be Tizen.

 

[nagromme]

Only the info you've provided speaks to all of Samsung Electronics. Not just phones.

That's true--and Apple's info speaks to all of Apple, not just phones, and Microsoft's bar in the chart is of course hardly phone-related at all.

The point is that Samsung outspends some of the biggest advertisers on the planet--by a huge amount.

Now look at the first two graphs (second link) and you'll see Samsung's mobile division is the biggest chunk.

And if you think their salesperson commission practice comes only from OUTSIDE the phone/mobile divisions, that would be mistaken. They rely on that for phones too. (In fact, I don't know how much their other divisions are likely to even spend on that practice. Non-zero? Probably.) Ditto for ads: do we see a lot of Samsung ads that are not for mobile?

 

[samcraig]

you easily forget that the rumors of a larger iPhone started.....well a year ago!!

so any person looking for an upgrade would have waited till September to see what Apple was coming out with instead of getting the S5 for example....

Of course. Clearly everyone waited.

 

[JeffDM]

OK, Samsung's peak was summer of last year and declining since, but your article title implies Samsung's profit declining to Apple's product introduced last month. Cute. Not shady at all.

 

[mdlooker]

I don't know how it is anywhere else, but for my morning commute in NYC I see probably 80% iPhones in peoples' hands. There is now officially no one that I talk to now that makes my messages green since a couple holdouts got the bigger iPhone 6. Which is awesome because I can now talk to all of my contacts on my computer.

Put simply the iPhone is the best phone out there. The people have spoken.

Right and to top that I always hear people saying, "oh that's the new iphone?.. I'm not eligible to upgrade until... Then I will get me one."

 

[thekeyring]

I think a lot of people are thinking "Now the iPhone has a large screen, why buy a Samsung?" That said, I'm amazed how many of my friends have Samsung phones. It seems to be you either get an iPhone or a Galaxy here in London.

 

[agsystems]

Apple should be worried also... the market is saturated, growth is slowing, technology is turning stagnant.

You Apple fans can celebrate today, but tomorrow it will be your turn to cut losses.

Mark my words.

I doubt Apple is worrying - 1+ billion phones are shipped every year. People are predicting Apple will sell this year 160M-170M - there is plenty of headroom to grow now that the 5C is priced correctly and next year it will become the 'free' phone ($349 contract free)

 

[Solomani]

This threads gonna be a feeding frenzy for the apple faithful.!!!!!

Anyone trying to use logic ....

Enter at you own risk !!!!

The MacRumors mods will likely shut down this thread and move it to Wasteland very soon. It is too much of a feel-good thread for frothy Apple fans , so MR will very likely censor the discussion.

Although if this had been an "Asteroid Slams Into Cupertino Destroying Iconic American Company" article, then it would have been a feeding frenzy for Apple-haters, and MR would have allowed this thread to fester for years, despite the thousands of venomous hate-posts that would have filled the topic. Just my observation that Apple-bashing threads tend to be given lots more traction on MR. Not sure why.

 

[BaldiMac]

OK, Samsung's peak was summer of last year and declining since, but your article title attributes it to Apple's product introduced last month. Cute.

Again, why jump on a headline for something it doesn't say.

The title clearly suggests a correlation and not causation.

 

[gnasher729]

So this is a coincidence huh? Hmm I'd be curious to see the market share from 3rd to 4th Qtr. I can't imagine the introduction of the 6 Plus NOT having an impact on their sales.. That's crazy to me.

We are always told about how Apple is doomed with its falling market share (which is in fact falling share of the smart phone market, with more cheap phones being replaced by equally cheap smart phones). But Apple is in the high end of the market, where profit is made, even when the unit sales are not that high.

Apple is hitting Samsung hard with the iPhone 6 because Samsung loses buyers in the profitable part of the market. It won't do that much to Samsung's market share. That's what the makers of cheap smartphones are doing. They are what makes Samsung's market share drop and makes them look bad; Apple is kicking them where it hurts financially.

 

[nagromme]

OK, Samsung's peak was summer of last year and declining since, but your article title attributes it to Apple's product introduced last month. Cute.

That's not what "as" means.

"As" means at the same time, which is true--and implies (correctly) that the factors in the headline together add up to an even worse problem for Samsung: the headline suggests that the tumble will continue, now aided by big iPhones. Can't argue with that.

The cause of the problem to begin with, you're right, is Apple's phones last year AND this year; and low-end cheap competition last year AND this year. Not just the competition today. (Or, for that matter, this year's anticipation of Apple's unreleased big phones.) Today's competition speaks more to the future.

 

[lordofthereef]

I am not saying this is unlikely to happen... but attempting to look at trends this early is just ridiculous. The new iPhones haven't been out a month. Meanwhile Samsung hasn't brought anything new to the table.

Look at these numbers at LEAST a few months down the road. Not three weeks after an Apple launch.

 

[gnasher729]

Samsung is making less and less money selling more and more phones. Samsung needs the high end. Think different. The answer for them should be Tizen.

Actually, they are not selling more phones. Samsung is losing on the high end to Apple and on the low end to all the manufacturers of cheap smart phones. And of course its non-smart phones have been dropping for years, but nobody too notice.

 

[6836838]

Ridiculous assertion.

It should also be noted that while the iPhone's new size is having an effect on sales (now). This profit issue isn't reflective of that (yet.) The bigger issue over the past several months for Samsung has been overseas with competitors in such places as China.

It's not like the iPhone 6 came out and suddenly the entire quarter tanks.

Did you actually think before your read my post?

You're missing the point entirely my friend. The profits have likely been hit due to the fact that Apple are limiting what they spend with Samsung as a supplier. Where did I mention anything about profits being hit as a result of the iPhone6[+]?

 

[mgmusicman94]

Steals Samsungs ideas
Makes millions

So just because one company did one basic thing with a phone, means nobody else can do it. Nobody else can increase their screen size because Samsung did it. I guess Samsung copied Apple by making their phones thinner this year.

 

[John.B]

The Samsung galaxy alpha seems to be a step on the right path though.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 801?

How effed up are Samsung's Exynos chips that they don't use them in their flagship phones, outside of Korea and Japan:

SIII: Snapdragon S4
S4: Snapdragon 600
S5: Snapdragon 801
Note 3: Snapdragon 800
Note 4: Snapdragon 805
Alpha: Snapdragon 801

Outside of that, it's an iPhone 5 knockoff, but with a flimsy plastic back:

 

[Risco]

Its pretty much impossible to make a profit on an Android phone because of the market it targets.

 

[brendu]

How so? You want Apple to have its competitors die off? I don't know about you but I'd rather have Apple be challenged by competitors; it will force Apple to innovate further as opposed to resting on their laurels.

I would rather see apple have more competition from motorola, Sony, Microsoft, htc, or LG than Samsung. Samsung is a scummy company (not just with apple) and I would love to see them fall to the wayside for awhile.

 

[thekeyring]

Samsung needs to change its game. They were on the right path getting rid of their biggest weakness, Android, until Google stomped them into submission.

Also, they can't just rely on bigger screen sizes. I heard a rumour that the Galaxy S6 will have a 5.2 or 5.3 inch display. Well, at what point does it evolve into a Note? Either only sell the Note or keep the S series in the phone category, not the phablet category.

 

[kerrikins]

The Samsung galaxy alpha seems to be a step on the right path though.

So... blatantly copying Apple...?

Idk, I'd rather see them put their own stamp on the smartphone market like HTC or Motorola. This 'let's mimick Apple' crap is old.

 

[samcraig]

Did you actually think before your read my post?

You're missing the point entirely my friend. The profits have likely been hit due to the fact that Apple are limiting what they spend with Samsung as a supplier. Where did I mention anything about profits being hit as a result of the iPhone6[+]?

That's also not the reason for the hit. But thanks for playing.

 

[techsmith]

Samsung is suffering multi quarter declines but they keep just doing the same thing. Copy Apple. Release a new version of old products. Run attack ads against Apple. Guess what? It's not working.

Samsung needs to change its game. They were on the right path getting rid of their biggest weakness, Android, until Google stomped them into submission.

Samsung is making less and less money selling more and more phones. Samsung needs the high end. Think different. The answer for them should be Tizen.

While good in theory, in practice you just can't make a new OS and expect developers to jump on-board and phone sales staff to push it when there are already established players. See Palm Web-OS, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry 10, all good OS's if you give them a chance. The last two are still throwing punches but can't even dream of touching Apple or Google for market share.