Beleaguered Samsung’s shares drop 4% after half-CEO warns of tough 2016

“Samsung Electronics shares fell over 4 percent after the South Korean electronics giant warned of a tough environment in 2016 amid weak global economic growth and increased competition in its key business units,” Arjun Kharpal reports for CNBC.

“Co-chief executive Kwon Oh-Hyun told employees in the company’s annual New Year’s address that issues such as emerging market financial risks could weigh on global growth. He also said that some of Samsung’s core products – including smartphones, televisions and memory chips – will face intensifying competition,” Kharpal reports. “Kwon said that in order to make sure their customers stick with their products, the company needs to change from a focus on hardware to software. ‘The territories of industries are collapsing,’ Kwon said. ‘We have to compete in a new way that we’ve never experienced in the past… The competition landscape is changing to software and platforms, so we need to build a new system and competence.'”

“Samsung’s operating profit is expected to come in at 6.8 trillion won ($5.7 billion) for the fourth quarter,” Kharpal reports, “8.1 percent lower than the 7.4 trillion won recorded in the third quarter, according to a mean estimate of 36 analysts’ forecasts compiled from a survey by Thomson Reuters.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Happy New Year!

Shackled to Android, Samsung has no point of differentiation. Apple will continue to take unit and the rest of the profit share from Samsung in the market segment in which they compete, and the bottom feeders will continue to take unit share as well. Tizen was Samsung’s only real hope, but they couldn’t manage to pull off such a large undertaking or, really, much of anything beyond mass producing inferior iPhone knockoffs. The world now sees: iPhone is the dream. If they have to settle for an Android phone until they can achieve iPhone, they can get the same thing Samsung offers at much lower prices from myriad Chinese Android handset assemblers (who are also knocking off Apple iPhones’ trade dress left and right).

Sooner or later, even Samsung will figure out there’s no profit to be had in Android handsets. — MacDailyNews Take, December 1, 2015

SEE ALSO:
Samsung finally to pay Apple $548 million in damages for copying iPhone, but then try to wrest it back – December 4, 2015
Beleaguered Samsung names new cellphone head in bid to stem market share losses to Apple iPhone – December 1, 2015
Ben Bajarin: ‘Samsung will be out of the smartphone business within five years’ – November 2, 2015
Apple’s iPhone can soon reap 100 percent of world’s smartphone profits – November 17, 2015
Apple’s iPhone owns 94% of smartphone industry’s profits – November 16, 2015
Apple iPhone owns over 90% of smartphone profits, so why do others even bother fighting over Apple’s scraps? – October 8, 2015
Beleaguered Samsung’s future depends more on components than on copying Apple – October 7, 2015
Beleaguered Samsung finding it tough to compete Apple’s revolutionary iPhone – October 6, 2015
Apple’s iPhone juggernaut continues with record-breaking sales while Android peddlers fight over scraps – September 28, 2015
Apple’s iPhone owns 92% of smartphone industry’s profits – July 13, 2015
Poor man’s iPhone: Android on the decline – February 26, 2015
Study: iPhone users are smarter and richer than those who settle for Android phones – January 22, 2015
Why Android users can’t have the nicest things – January 5, 2015
iPhone users earn significantly more than those who settle for Android phones – October 8, 2014
Yet more proof that Android is for poor people – June 27, 2014
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IDC data shows two thirds of Android’s 81% smartphone share are cheap junk phones – November 13, 2013
CIRP: Apple iPhone users are younger, richer, and better educated than those who settle for Samsung knockoff phones – August 19, 2013