“Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge yesterday at Mobile World Congress,” Neil Cybart writes for Above Avalon. “Following a 45-minute keynote that lacked much purpose besides highlighting how mistakes made with the Galaxy S5 have now been corrected, I’m left wondering who is Samsung’s primary customer: mobile carriers or phone manufacturers? Is Samsung losing all sense of reality by ignoring consumers and instead shipping smartphones in order to drum up marketing for its stronger smartphone components business? I’m no longer confident I know why Samsung is selling smartphones.”
“If Samsung is relying on its premium smartphones to market screens, processors, and other components to other smartphone vendors, instead of giving the consumer a good experience, I highly doubt the company will be able to regain the Galaxy sales momentum lost in 2014,” Cybart writes. “Smartphone competition continues to intensify and companies without a mission statement built around the consumer will find dimming prospects. Samsung’s refocused attention on its smartphone components business is becoming a major liability and dilemma for the company’s ambitions as a smartphone manufacturer.”
Much more in the full article – highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Samsung’s smartphone dilemma is that Apple invented the modern smartphone and all Samsung seems to be able to do on their best day is come up with half-asssed knockoffs stuffed with an inferior, insecure OS that they’ve skinned to look and work as much like a real iPhone as they think they can get away with.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Samsung’s inability to design anything has been blatantly obvious from the start when they released the first Galaxy phones. Copying Apple has been their modus operandi.
Look what they came out with on the rumours about the iWatch 😅
I’d like nothing more to see samsung exit the smartphone biz tail between their legs.
Yet the bigger problem will remain even if Samsung does get out of the smartphone business: Samsung has shown the world that the US legal system is an utter mess of incompetence, and unable to protect anything of real value, like Intellectual Property. Thank you, Judge Lucy Koh.
agreed. Samsung is retracing AAPL’s JAM trajectories without adjusting EGG +- for BUN.
And we’ve all seen how that worked out for Sony…
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Now would be a good time for Apple to introduce removable batteries and memory. Ha!
Along with a retractable horse and buggy whip. Removable batteries are last centuries technology, similar to keyboards on phones.
OT-But might be of interest to all MACers-
I had an old Apple wireless mouse that never worked well….would scroll in one direction but not the other.
Maddening!
Was going to shit can it but decided to spray it with WD-40 and see what would happen.
The damn thing now works like a charm, I love it.
So, your saying that all Samsung needs is a little WD-40?
No, what I said was that maybe some Apple products could use a little WD-40. I my case it was true.
I seem to remember there were a lot of complaints about Apple mice; many asked why couldn’t they build a great one? The “hockey puck” certainly was not even a good one.
Samsung needs an enema, not WD-40.
Why be an asshole?
Wondering that as I read your notes.
Um, OK Richard. Now, close that can of toluene and step out into the fresh air. You’re acting slightly giddy. Oh and congratulations.
Now back to the subject at hand: Samsung’s ‘smart’ phone demise.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer thief.
“Samsung” is a mega-conglomerate. It doesn’t act like a single company with a cohesive strategy. There’s Samsung Semiconductor, Samsung Display, Samsung Electronics… There are a lot more subsidiaries of “Samsung Group,” but those are the key ones relevant to this discussion. Each has its own agenda and need to succeed, so it’s no wonder that Samsung’s overall “mission statement” is unclear.
Apple is ONE company with a singular strategy. Apple wisely treats the “Samsungs” as separate companies. So, Apple’s rivalry and legal disputes with Samsung Electronics do not prevent Apple from getting the best volume deals for components from the “other” Samsungs. Fortunately, Apple is run by smart leaders who see the “big picture.”
Samsung’s refocused attention on its smartphone components business is…
…Maybe, just maybe, Samsung getting the hint that they have to be more realistic about their future. Selling cheap, knockoff iPhone wannabes isn’t going to last much longer.
Samsung’s marketing approach seems to be to try to make everything and hope that something sells.
I have friends that love their Samsung Notes or Galaxy phones, especially the hardware and some of them have come from older iPhones so they clearly make products that will sell to some people. But they’re starting to compete against Google with their pay model and have been competing with Google with TouchWiz for a while and that hasn’t worked out that well. Samsung does make a lot of money making components for Apple too.
I like having Samsung around as it pushes Apple to make better and better products – I just don’t expect that I’ll buy one anytime soon.
I like having Samsung around to demonstrate what bad design looks like. Apple generally nails the good (although iOS 7+ and Yosemite are notable exceptions). It’s helpful to have a contrast. Also, what would clueless people do with all their money if not for Samsung?
I don’t know what Samsung’s smartphones are like, but I am really impressed with their digital cameras.
I got the Samsung NX1 with 16-50mm f/2.0-2.8 S lens package – a beautiful and impressive combination.
Samsung is turning heads with the new NX1 camera.