Samsung earnings disappoint as company blames competition in smartphone space

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 103
    So many trolls are butt hurt over this reversal of fortune. Don't be. Samsung is winnnnnnning. Because everyone is comparing their smartphones to [s]Apple's[/s] Samsung's.
  • Reply 62 of 103
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    bigpics wrote: »
    Would they not be rooting for HTC, the upcoming Lenovo/Motorola combine and other non-forking/less bloatware adding Android makers instead....??

    At the moment reducing Android market share by a few percentage points in the EU is probably more important. Rooting for iOS only makes sense.
  • Reply 63 of 103
    They've run out of things to copy.
  • Reply 64 of 103
    sog35 wrote: »
    Hilarious.  Funny they mention everything except the iPhone6 for weak sales.

    You must mean the iPhone 5c/5s because I checked the Apple Store and they've never heard of the iPhone 6. :)
  • Reply 65 of 103
    thevoflthevofl Posts: 13member
    If Apple wanted to really put a nail in Samsung's coffin then lower the price tag on iPhone6 by about $100 adjusting/keeping the memory: $99 - 8Gb, $199 - 32Gb, $299 - 64Gb, $399 - 128Gb (hoping here).
  • Reply 66 of 103
    kent909kent909 Posts: 731member
    So the headline says that Samsung blames competition. I did not see any quotes in the article of any Samsung employee saying that. Who at Samsung is blaming competition? Names? Dates? Quotes?
  • Reply 67 of 103
    thevoflthevofl Posts: 13member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    Apple doesn't do cheap.

     

    With your plan they would be throwing away $15,000,000,000 ( $100 x 150,000,000 phones)

     

    They can't keep up with demand as it is and you want them to drop prices?  They don't need to drop prices to destroy Samsung.


    I didn't say cheap.  Cheap implies reduced quality.

     

    They wouldn't be throwing 15B away.  Cost of memory has dropped.  Apple hasn't had an adjustment to the pricing/memory in a number of generations; they are due for one.  Also they would be more attractive to a great number of other customers who are looking for a more cost effective phone.

     

    If this strategy was so ineffective and against their goals, then why is there an 8Gb iPhone in some markets?

  • Reply 68 of 103
    kent909kent909 Posts: 731member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    Read the earnings report from Samsung directly

     

    http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/ir/ireventpresentations/earningsrelease/downloads/2012/20140731_conference_eng.pdf


    Well actually I have no interest in reading Samsung's earnings report. If AI wants to reference something from it maybe they should include the quote, or change the headline to reflect what the article actually covers.

  • Reply 69 of 103
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by thevofl View Post



    If Apple wanted to really put a nail in Samsung's coffin then lower the price tag on iPhone6 by about $100 adjusting/keeping the memory: $99 - 8Gb, $199 - 32Gb, $299 - 64Gb, $399 - 128Gb (hoping here).

     

    Apple will be able to give the razors away for free when the money they make on the blades justifies it (in other words, once iTunes sales per phone exceed the cost of the hardware).

  • Reply 70 of 103
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    All I can say is, Apple better diversify its supply chain away from Samsung and look hard at its production dependence on China and any Chinese component suppliers too. An all-out war is brooding and it only takes one weak link in the chain to be broken (one supplier not providing something to Apple that Apple cannot source elsewhere) and Bam!, Apple can't build product. I wonder if this keeps Tim Cook up nights. It should.
  • Reply 71 of 103
    radarthekatradarthekat Posts: 3,842moderator
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Constable Odo View Post

     

    Looking at Apple's share price collapse today, I take it Wall Street must be thinking the same thing will happen to Apple as it did to Samsung.  I'd say that's a pretty far-fetched way of thinking if that's the case.  For Samsung, it's the high-end Galaxy S5 not selling all that well and those tens of millions of low-end devices that are eating away at Samsung's profits.  They're going to have the same problem Nokia had trying to hold onto all that market share.  Some of these companies never learn to stop biting off more than they can chew.  It's like one country trying to dominate the whole world but eventually the troops get stretched too thin and the supply chain becomes nearly impossible to manage.  I'd say Samsung has had it for now and it will take them at least another year to recover.


    There are 18 stocks on my main tech watch list.   Go check them yourself.

     

    http://finance.yahoo.com/quotes/AAPL,YHOO,IBM,P,AMZN,FB,TWTR,GOOG,INTC,MSFT,NFLX,TSLA,PCLN,CRUS,QCOM,BBRY,T,VZ/view/e

     

    Nine did better than AAPL today in terms of percentage loss in share price, and the rest did worse.  Apple simply moved with the market today.

  • Reply 72 of 103
    froodfrood Posts: 771member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Mac-sochist View Post





    Widgets? Seriously? I played with Dashboard for a couple of weeks when I first got Tiger—had it disabled ever since. Widgets are the most worthless idea anybody's ever come up with.

     

    When they were first 'imposed' on me on a PC, I found them absolutely annoying and hated them.  I don't use them on a PC because they just clutter things up and get in the way of me trying to do things.

     

    When I switched from my iPhone to a bigger screen, I found them to be one of the best features available.  On my iPhone I always had to either grind through the web to get info, or switch between several different apps.  I don't think widgets would have worked well on the smaller screen phone because there just isn't enough real estate.  With a bigger screen I get my search widget, Now cards, weather widget, news, and stock ticker all on my main screen and still have room for the 'most used' apps and have moved my 'Grid of App Icons' screens on the non-main screens.  Most of the time now I just turn my phone on and look at it and have all the info I was looking for without having to do anything.

     

    I'm sure a lot of people won't like them, but for those that either already do, or will choose to explore them for the first time- it may be another Apple 'wow' moment for them as I'm sure Apple will add some new elegance to them.

  • Reply 73 of 103
    kent909 wrote: »
    sog35 wrote: »
    Well actually I have no interest in reading Samsung's earnings report. If AI wants to reference something from it maybe they should include the quote, or change the headline to reflect what the article actually covers.

    So you want someone else to totally masticate your news and spit it directly into your mouth for you...?
  • Reply 74 of 103
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RadarTheKat View Post

     

    There are 18 stocks on my main tech watch list.   Go check them yourself.

     

    http://finance.yahoo.com/quotes/AAPL,YHOO,IBM,P,AMZN,FB,TWTR,GOOG,INTC,MSFT,NFLX,TSLA,PCLN,CRUS,QCOM,BBRY,T,VZ/view/e

     

    Nine did better than AAPL today in terms of percentage loss in share price, and the rest did worse.  Apple simply moved with the market today.


     

    Yes, Apple isn't the entire market. When I see bizarre stock movement my first impulse is to check the news for unusual world events.

  • Reply 75 of 103
    woochiferwoochifer Posts: 385member

    Samsung really took their eye off the ball by obsessing about all things Apple -- copying them, bashing them, and now flooding the market with barely functional wearables in anticipation of what they think Apple might do next.  In the meantime, they got lazy with their smartphone designs -- resorting to benchmark cheats, spec bumps, and loading up their phones with useless and poorly implemented gimmicks. This has allowed their more established rivals to come in with better designed high end Android alternatives and post modest gains at Samsung's expense.

     

    And on their backside, Samsung completely missed the threat represented by Chinese Android OEMs. The Chinese competitors have rapidly upped the ante, probably a lot faster than Samsung anticipated; and they seem content to scrape by with considerably lower margins, which Samsung cannot do if they don't want their stock to collapse. Because they share a common platform, these Chinese Android OEMs are a far greater threat to Samsung than Apple.

     

    Of course, try convincing an analyst or tech blogger of that. They share the same myopic view of the market that Samsung seems to have. Focusing on perceived threats from Apple, rather than the far more real ones from their Android brethren.

     

    By doing the heavy lifting with building their own platform, media content distribution, and closed loop app ecosystem, Apple has insulated themselves from the bloodletting in progress with the established Android OEMs. This affords them the freedom to play the long game, and take a more strategic approach with the platform and product roadmap. Stuff like laying the groundwork for 64-bit migration, scaling up the use of exotic materials like sapphire and Liquidmetal alloys, designing their own GPUs and basebands, secure payments, and various approaches to things such as real time map data and augmented reality that they have patented and may or may not introduce in future products. Because they don't share a common platform with their competitors, they don't have to implement a feature or follow the collapsing price points just because others are doing so.

     

    Samsung does not have that luxury, and having these kinds of steep year-over-year declines in the introductory quarter for the Galaxy S5 is an indication that their market position has eroded considerably. They tried to hold things off as long as they could by stuffing the channel and flooding the market with BOGO and other promotions right out of the gate. But, high inventory levels and depressed margins seem to indicate that those efforts failed, and Samsung's now paying the price.

  • Reply 76 of 103



    We're sorry our profit dropped 30%. It's not 'cause our phones are shitty pieces of plastic, but 'cause the other guys got a better product. It's HIS fault.

     

    F*ck I hate these guys

  • Reply 77 of 103
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Woochifer View Post

     

    Samsung really took their eye off the ball by obsessing about all things Apple -- copying them, bashing them, and now flooding the market with barely functional wearables in anticipation of what they think Apple might do next.  In the meantime, they got lazy with their smartphone designs -- resorting to benchmark cheats, spec bumps, and loading up their phones with useless and poorly implemented gimmicks. This has allowed their more established rivals to come in with better designed high end Android alternatives.

     

    And on their backside, Samsung completely missed the threat represented by Chinese Android OEMs. The Chinese competitors have rapidly upped the ante, probably a lot faster than Samsung anticipated; and they seem content to scrape by with considerably lower margins, which Samsung cannot do if they don't want their stock to collapse. Because they share a common platform, these Chinese Android OEMs are a far greater threat to Samsung than Apple.

     

    Of course, try convincing an analyst or tech blogger of that. They share the same myopic view of the market that Samsung seems to have. Focusing on perceived threats from Apple, rather than the far more real ones from their Android brethren.

     

    By doing the heavy lifting with building their own platform, media content distribution, and closed loop app ecosystem, Apple has insulated themselves from the bloodletting in progress with the established Android OEMs. This affords them the freedom to play the long game, and take a more strategic approach with the platform and product roadmap. Stuff like laying the groundwork for 64-bit migration, scaling up the use of exotic materials like sapphire and Liquidmetal alloys, designing their own GPUs and basebands, secure payments, and various approaches to things such as real time map data and augmented reality that they have patented and may or may not introduce in future products. Because they don't share a common platform with their competitors, they don't have to implement a feature just because somebody else has it.

     

    Samsung does not have that luxury, and having these kinds of steep year-over-year declines in the introductory quarter for the Galaxy S5 is an indication that their market position has eroded considerably. They tried to hold things off as long as they could by stuffing the channel and flooding the market with BOGO and other promotions right out of the gate. But, high inventory levels and depressed margins seem to indicate that those efforts failed, and Samsung's now paying the price.


     

    In 3-5 years the entire low-end smartphone market outside the US may be completely dominated by Chinese companies and Samsung will just be an unpleasant fuzzy memory.

  • Reply 78 of 103
    thevofl wrote: »
    If Apple wanted to really put a nail in Samsung's coffin then lower the price tag on iPhone6 by about $100 adjusting/keeping the memory: $99 - 8Gb, $199 - 32Gb, $299 - 64Gb, $399 - 128Gb (hoping here).

    The two most popular phones on the face of the earth are slated for a $100 slide in price in a couple months, that ought to do it.... Meanwhile the S5 isn't selling well at half price (BOGO) so while the top end is stuffed to bursting, Samsung is in even worse shape on the bottom end... outlets won't even let Samsung stuff their channels.

    No word on whether Samsung out-spent the whole tech industry combined this year ... but it they haven't reeled in their advertising budget then they might as well; it's not working.
  • Reply 79 of 103
    kent909kent909 Posts: 731member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Macky the Macky View Post





    So you want someone else to totally masticate your news and spit it directly into your mouth for you...?

     Isn't this the function of the media? A few people gather the news and report it to the many. You know, what you said without the hostility.

  • Reply 80 of 103
    woochiferwoochifer Posts: 385member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post

     

     

    In 3-5 years the entire low-end smartphone market outside the US may be completely dominated by Chinese companies and Samsung will just be an unpleasant fuzzy memory.


    If they're willing to load up their phones with high spec components and sell them practically at cost, these Chinese OEMs could wind up taking more than just the low end of the market. Samsung's only saving grace might be their willingness to outspend everybody on marketing (both on advertising and spiffs at retail, which is their very effective behind-the-scenes dirty work), and these Chinese OEMs potentially getting tied down by injunctions because of their even more blatant copying.

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