back to article Bloodied Samsung's profits down 25% as it clings to mobe crown

Samsung issued unaudited earnings guidance for the second quarter of its fiscal 2014 on Tuesday – and although it once again pulled in an impressive pile of coin, all is not going as well as was hoped for the world's biggest smartphone maker. The company said it now anticipates revenues of around 52.0 trillion South Korean won …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Saturation?

    Tablet sales seem to have hit the low? Will they get beat by laptops soon?

    1. Khaptain Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Saturation?

      Tablets have suffered from Silver Bullet syndrome since the beginning. They have always promised to deliver something wondefull but in the end they are for the majority just more landfill.

      There are a few examples of where tablets are usefull but they are in a very small niche and certainely not anywhere near the percentage of the unwashed masses that bought one to realise that they dont really have any need or requirement for one.

      Tablets were for a whle a marketing wet dream but that bubble has now gone pop.

      I can't imagine laptops coming back from the dead, so what's next, I have no idea but it will probably be as usefull as a fishing rod for a yodelling ostrich.

      Unless of course someone brings out "FlipTopSmartLapTab" that has triangular corners and is capable of time travel.......or at least that's what it will say on the box...

      Touch of sarcasm in there, nah not me...

      The Ostrich might be thirsty after all that yodelling so I'll buy him one of these while he reflects on where to find a small lake.- ------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>

      1. ThomH

        Re: Saturation?

        I think tablets are a much preferable option to laptops for a large number of people. I think that any deceleration is, as the poster suggests, saturation. Tablets are now on a refresh cycle for people that want them.

        You can't soundly conclude either (i) that any particular proportion of sales were people buying into the hype (though almost certainly some will have been); or (ii) that laptop sales will climb.

        1. Khaptain Silver badge

          Re: Saturation?

          >You can't soundly conclude either (i) that any particular proportion of sales were people buying into the hype (though almost certainly some will have been); or (ii) that laptop sales will climb.

          Agreed it is very difficult to make a true conclusion but :

          Who actually did buy the tablets ? The professional market, the only people that I have ever seen using tablets are sales droids showing product presentation... I don't seen them on public transport during commuting hours and I don't see them in the streets as we do smartphones.... So who the hell bought the damned things.

          What I do beleive though is that Joe Public simply doesn't need these gadgets. He actually has very little usage for them. It would be extremely difficult to build a use case model that was actually serious. That is why I believe that most of them are hype driven, why else would Joe Public buy one ?

          My wife works in the education field and all of the staff were given iPads but no-one uses the damned things because they don't truly provide the platform that is required... Again these were hype driven purchases, Silver Bullet if you will. There is an once opended iPad box on top of my fridge that we simply can't find use for and I am convinced that we are not alone in that respect.. And from what I understood all of the schools, at least in my region, were given them.... I don't consider this as professional, this is educational, which is a different market althoug no better in the end..

          I find that a reasonable smartphone covers 90% of Joe Publics real requriements. The tablets might cover 5%....

          The market might be saturated but it also can't fnd any true prupose for tablets that would justify an upgrade or renewal.. the fad has come and gone

          >that laptop sales will climb.

          I don't believe that laptops will climb back up either.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    About time too

    Saturation is here. Does no one at these companies know it?

    On one hand they want to tie you into a 2 year contract (there IS NO TRUE subsidy, mind). at a price of £30 to £ 40 per month. And then release a new handset every 6 months and expect idiots to keep buying your stuff? AT £ 600 plus a pop?

    Greedy wankers, them lot.

    There is no more innovation in smart phones, just more of the same, repackaged with a gimmicky feature. People have wisened up to this tricks.

  3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Being squeezed from both ends

    The Beeb reported this morning that Samsung were being squeezed at the bottom end of the market by the rise of the Chinese makers like Huawei etc. At the top end, even the soon to be replaced iPhone 5s is holding its market share pretty well against the newly released S5. Now google seem to want to take control of Android back thus limiting the opportunities for Samsung to make their offering different from the rest.

    The Analysists in places like Singapore were concerned that Samsung were relying far too much on their Mobile business for its profits.

    Things might not be so rosy in the Samsung Garden. Perhaps they have some whizzo products up their sleeve that will shock the market and make them a lot of dosh?

    There are a lot of people around the world waiting with interest for Samsung to do something dramatic.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Being squeezed from both ends

      When has Samsung ever come out with a "whizzo product that will shock the market"? The initial Galaxys succeeded because they were the first to see the desire for larger premium phones, but they used someone else's OS and the 'touch screen covering the whole front' format wasn't their invention.

      All the extras they added on in various iterations like eye tracking didn't prove to be "whizzo" in any way. Now their profits are dropping because their formula of "same as before, but a few tenths of an inch larger and some more half baked features we hope will gain traction added on" doesn't excite consumers.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Being squeezed from both ends

        When has Samsung ever come out with a "whizzo product that will shock the market"?

        when has any company done that? you could make an argument for the iphone, and possibly the blackberry before that, but what's happened since then? were the nokia camera phones "whizzo"? or how about the re-introduction of the stylus, or fingerprint recognition? seems to me that samsung has been doing an admirable job in a market that's largely saturating, and any attempt to claim they haven't revolutionized mobile in the last few years is a bit harsh.

        1. PC1512

          Re: Being squeezed from both ends

          Samsung haven't revolutionised anything, at any point - that's not being harsh, it's simply how it is. That's not how they operate. They look at other people's products and ideas and take a scattergun approach to trying to match or exceed those at a lower price - and that's it. There's never been a vision there, no great mission, no burning innovation, just product.

          The iPhone revolutionised mobile. Samsung have only competed - strongly - in a game which the iPhone began, and in which the iPhone set all the rules.

          1. Don Jefe

            Re: Being squeezed from both ends

            Samsung is a giant, diversified, corporation and the various product categories of all such companies tend to have their day in the sun, then rejoin the collective as another category becomes the VIP. There's really not much to be derived about Samsung's products in all this. Not only is this a natural function of a massively diversified company, it's part of a type of business resiliency strategy that's extremely popular with institutional investors. You can safely park huge sums of money in a company like Samsung and not have to put your suicide note on your desk before each earnings call.

            1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

              Re: Being squeezed from both ends

              And they had a good year last year. Tablet replacement cycles seem longer than phone ones, something that was also reflected in Apple's most recent report.

              Samsung continues to invest in technology and I think may be well placed to benefit from Google's next Android offensive.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Being squeezed from both ends

            The only things that the iPhone really revolutionised were the GUI (which in the face of an aging Symbian wasn't going to be difficult - S60v5 was no thing of beauty) - and a properly presented app store.

            If Nokia had got their finger out with MeeGo, iOS would never have stolen the lead that it did.....

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AC

          You made my argument for me. Even Apple hasn't revolutionized much...I would argue they did with the iPhone and iPad, but others will disagree. Getting a major new product that has sales to move the needle for a company of the size of a Samsung or an Apple is very difficult. Apple may not do it again, but it has arguably done so in the past. Samsung never has, which is why I was rather credulous of the idea there was a chance they might.

          Samsung doesn't even try for these types of launches. They take what's out there and glue some extra bits on it or make the hardware incrementally better than what came for in some ways. These things don't move the needle and change the perception of an entire product category as Apple did with smartphones when the launched the iPhone (making a smartphone something that a regular person might want, instead of just nerds and PHBs)

      2. MrXavia

        Re: Being squeezed from both ends

        The reason I buy Samsung is simple, their devices fit my needs.. big clear screen, fast CPU, microsd slot, removable battery..

        Nothing revolutionary, but it meets my needs...

        the iPhone is often touted as revolutionary, which is rubbish... it was simply evolutionary, and in its first incarnation, it was devolutionary, the only thing it brought over the Symbian based phone I had at the time was a slightly bigger screen and a capacitive touch input. nothing revolutionary there, infact it didn't even have apps....

        1. PC1512

          Re: Being squeezed from both ends

          The iPhone can be called revolutionary because it sparked a revolution, simple as that - I too had a number of Symbian and also windows mobile smartphones before the iPhone came along and thought I was terribly clever for owning them as they were "the future" - but of course they weren't. In reality they were buggy, difficult, niche products designed for a very small section of the phone market, on the assumption that everyone else would use dumb phones forever.

          The iPhone changed that. You may not have been impressed but the mass market was - here was a device which anyone could use, and which could gain the traction in terms of userbase to actually create a whole new platform for games, lifestyle apps, social media, you name it. A revolution. And to imagine that the next Symbian or windows phone (or even android in its blackberry-aping style at that time) to come along would have achieved the same thing is pure fantasy.

  4. GrumpyOldBloke

    A segment crying out for a proper operating system, cheaper peripherals (tablets:keyboards) and the ability to remove vendor crapware (esp Samsung).

  5. Frank N. Stein

    Is Samsung going to produce that Sapphire display for the new iPhones? If so, that should tidy up their financial books rather nicely, shouldn't it?

  6. Shannon Jacobs
    Holmes

    The only good profit is an obscene profit?

    Sorry, it's the rules of the game that are obscene. What do you expect when all of the laws are written by the most cheaply bribed politicians working for the least ethical and greediest businessmen based on the 'cancer is GOOD' business model. Unfortunately, it still can't help them solve their problem. You see, their problem is that they don't have enough money, and there is NO amount of money that would be "enough" for such sick personalities.

    Let me make clear that most businesspeople are good folks. They just want to play the game fairly and by the rules. They are NOT the 0.1% of the businessmen who are buying the politicians to rig the game.

    Oh yeah. About Samsung. I don't know if they are bribing politicians with the aggressiveness of the google. What I do know is that profit is based on the small difference between two large numbers. It is only a small fraction of the manufacturing costs and net sales income. The stock market only cares about these actually tiny fluctuations because it is just a sick gambling game that has NO relationship to the original purposes of issuing shares to pool risk for large capital expenditures.

    1. uncle sjohie

      Re: The only good profit is an obscene profit?

      Samsung and the other chaebol companies in South Korea almost own the complete political system, there horse really does decide which direction the cart is being pulled. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tax-evasion-bribery-and-pricefixing-how-samsung-became-the-giant-that-ate-korea-8510588.html

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't worry Samsung

    Just release another incarnation of your extremely popular galaxy watch range and tack another galaxy sticker on a even chubbier and more squished version of the S5 design and jobs a good one in the mobile sector...

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