Above: Samsung's flagship Galaxy S5.
Samsung has released its second-quarter earnings report, and the news is not as sunny as you’d expect for the world’s #1 maker of smartphones.
The South Korean company posted an operating profit of $7.1 billion, significantly off the analysts’ estimates of about $8.5 billion for the second quarter of 2014.
This is the first time in two years that the company has posted quarterly earnings below 8 trillion won (about $7.9 billion).
Bloomberg reports that the company is hurting on both its high-end and low-end market segments. On the high end, #2 smartphone maker Apple is cutting into the company’s sales. An expected large-screen iPhone 6 later this year will further eliminate Samsung’s traditional advantage versus iOS devices: Its huge displays.
On the low end, cheap Chinese smartphone makers like Xiaomi (which poached senior Android exec Hugo Barra in August, 2013) and LG have successfully nibbled away at its market share.
Shares of Samsung fell 1.1 percent to 1,292,000 won yesterday, Bloomberg reports, adding that the company’s stock fell almost 10 percent in 2013, its first yearly decline since 2008.
Apple designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes t... read more »
Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. It comprises numerous subsidiaries and affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, and is the largest Sout... read more »
Xiaomi Inc. is a privately owned company that designs, develops, and sells Internet services and consumer electronics. Xiaomi offers a suite of Internet services such as MiCloud, Xiaomi App Market, and Xiaomi Games Center. Its core lin... read more »
