Samsung's Q4 results disappoint as smartphone sales plunge

[HEXUS]

The firm is likely to focus more on its component business as the largest supplier of DRAM.

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[Slivver]

Phone sales dropped from 319.8 millions to 317.2 million units, does a 2.6 million (0.8%) drop in 2014 constitute a plunge? The margins may have dropped but volumes still look very healthy.

[Brian224]

The margins may have dropped but volumes still look very healthy.

I am not sure volume is ever healthy without sufficient margin to profit from it. As far as volumes are concerned though, the future cannot look that healthy when they have dropped from 32% of the market to 25% in a single year.

[kingpotnoodle]

Phone sales dropped from 319.8 millions to 317.2 million units, does a 2.6 million (0.8%) drop in 2014 constitute a plunge? The margins may have dropped but volumes still look very healthy.

It's a plunge because they have lost market share, they are shipping fewer units into a much bigger market. Total market increased by nearly 30% so you could argue sales have slid >30% from where you would expect Samsung to be if they simply maintained market share.

[crossy]

Hmm, I think it's that nebulous "Other" category that's responsible for taking the majority of Samsung's sales - remember that this includes some pretty big "heavy hitters" like Google, LG, Sony, etc.

Given that I was a (happy) Galaxy S3 owner in 2014, I assume I would have been a definite for the S5. Trouble is that I saw it and the spec sheet and thought "unimaginative and ugly". So I went elsewhere (LG actually). What I'm thinking though is that once those Samsung loyalists go elsewhere then Samsung will have to work very had to get them back - this surely is worrying.

[shaithis]

I expected this.

All the apple fanboys I've argued with never got (or plain refused to acknowledge) that one size does not fit all. This was why Sumsung had such a good few years of handset sales.

Once Apple went back on their "a phone must be usable by a single thumb" nonsense, the floodgates opened for the iSheep and Sumsungs sales have plummeted and Apple post record profits.

[3dcandy]

My take is slightly different, plenty of my mates have got S3's or S4's and are happy and not bothered to update...

[AGTDenton]

I felt they were on the downward slope when the S5 launched, much like HTC, Nokia and BlackBerry before them. This in part due to their slowness in updating phones with new software, also they seem hell bent on ditching Android across all their electronic offerings which has yet to convince me that any of my next gear should be Samsung.
My S3 LTE (i9305) was supposed to have been updated in May last year, it still hasn't happened and is unlikely to happen now - I gave up the other week and upgraded to the LG G3.

[crossy]

I felt they were on the downward slope when the S5 launched, much like HTC, Nokia and BlackBerry before them. This in part due to their slowness in updating phones with new software, also they seem hell bent on ditching Android across all their electronic offerings which has yet to convince me that any of my next gear should be Samsung.
My S3 LTE (i9305) was supposed to have been updated in May last year, it still hasn't happened and is unlikely to happen now - I gave up the other week and upgraded to the LG G3.

I know what you mean - an otherwise-contented S3 owner here but - like you - now migrated onto LG G3. Other problem I've seen mentioned elsewhere is the mysterious slowing down over time of Samsung phones - other brands like HTC don't seem to have such a big issue. In which case, maybe there's something bad in TouchWiz? I've also got a Note10.1 tablet that's all but unusable for web browsing because there's a 30 seconds (or sometimes longer) delay in loading pages. And no, it's not my broadband connection - as the G3 is nicely snappy.

If you still had the S3 I was going to suggest going to a 3rd party ROM, I know a couple of S3 owners who've done this (mainly SlimKat) and have been astounded by the speed increase they get.