Samsung will 'fundamentally reform' its smartphones going forward

Samsung has announced that their earnings this past quarter were as bad as some had predicted with profit from smartphones diving to the lowest in more than three years. With their operating profit down 60 percent and income from sales is down 20 percent than a year ago, Samsung’s revenue is and has been heading downwards.

Samsung’s head of investor relations, Robert Yi, told an earnings conference call that Samsung was lagging behind changing market conditions and that their response “was not quick enough.”

Now, Samsung is vowing to to “fundamentally reform [its] product portfolio.” According to Senior VP Kim Hyun-joon, Samsung will look to compete for “each price tier.”  This is in contrast to Sony who recently announced their own plans to focus on more premium, high-end devices. Kim also admitted that Galaxy Note 4 sales were only “marginally” successful and that Galaxy S5 sales were lukewarm.

“High-end smartphone sales result was somewhat weak,” said Kim Hyun-joon, senior vice-president at Samsung’s mobile communications business. “We will fundamentally reform our product portfolio.” – Guardian

It isn’t hard to see why Samsung would feel the need for radical change. While Apple, Xiaomi, Lenovo and LG Electronics all had more than 15% growth, Samsung’s shipments fell 8% to 78.1m smartphones in the third quarter and its market share fell from 33 percent to 24 percent.