Samsung is still the king of the day, despite losing market share to low-cost Chinese rivals. Even though it spends more money on marketing than any other handset maker on the planet, the Korean firm can’t move as many devices as it used to. Simply put, Samsung’s devices are more expensive than competing products and, honestly, there’s no good reason why someone would get a Samsung over some other phone. Most of them run Android, after all.
The good thing, at least for Samsung shareholders, is that the company’s executives realized that something needs to change. Minor product updates and a premium price tag can’t be sold forever. Good days — again for those with Samsung stake — are gone. Margins are going down, and competition is getting better with the day.
To “fight back,” Samsung plans to “fundamentally reform [its] product portfolio.” One of the ideas is to standardize components used across devices in a move that could enable Sammy to make phones for less money than any other vendor can. This, in turn, would leave more room for profits, while allowing the company to stay competitive “for each price tier.”
While that sounds as a good business strategy, we would also like to see more affordable premium devices. In some Asian countries where a number of Chinese phones are available, it’s getting hard to convince users that, let’s say, Galaxy S5 is worth $200 more than Xiaomi Mi4, Oppo Find 7 or OnePlus One. The situation is even worse in the low- and mid-ends of the market.
Perhaps it’s time Samsung unveils another (low-cost) brand? Or perhaps they could just make their products more affordable? We’ll see how this pans out next year…
[Via: TheVerge, TheGuardian]