Samsung is struggling with disappointing deliveries of smartphones and tablets
Disappointing deliveries of smartphones and tablets have led to a decline in profits at Samsung’s mobile division. According to Samsung, sales in Europe in particular suffered from existing stocks. The coming months will remain difficult, the company believes.
Samsung has not mentioned precise figures for its smartphones and tablets for years. Analysts don’t have a clear picture either; various analysts give very different estimates of how many smartphones and tablets Samsung supplies.
Demand for smartphones in the quarter was flat compared to the winter months and demand for tablets fell, Samsung notes: “In those market conditions, both deliveries of smartphones and tablets decreased due to existing inventories in Europe and, as a result, increased demand for smartphones and tablets. company’s marketing budget.”
The declining demand for tablets is striking, because Samsung presented many new models in recent months, such as the Tab 4 series, TabPRO and NotePRO tablets. Apple has also seen declining demand for its iPads. It was also the months when Samsung started selling its Galaxy S5 smartphone.
The Korean concern also expects a ‘challenging’ quarter for the coming period. However, the releases of a large smartphone and a ‘high-end model with new design and material’, as the CEO of Samsung’s mobile branch, Kim Hyunjoon, calls it according to The Wall Street Journal, should bring some improvement. With this, the CEO is probably referring to the Galaxy Note 4 and a smartphone with a metal edge that is rumored to be called Galaxy Alpha. The latter would be presented by Samsung next week, according to Samsung fan site SamMobile, and will have a 4.8″ screen with 1280×720 pixels; the screen size would roughly match the as yet unannounced smaller variant of the iPhone 6 with a 4.7″ screen.
Falling demand for smartphones and tablets also negatively impacted the results of Samsung’s chip division. High demand for memory at the same supply will increase the profit of those sales, Samsung expects for the coming period. The sale of SSDs also remains high, reports Samsung, partly due to the high demand for SSDs for data centers.
In the end, Samsung’s quarterly turnover amounted to 52.35 trillion Korean won, or 38 billion euros. That was 2 percent lower than in the same period last year. The quarterly profit fell from EUR 5.66 billion last year to EUR 4.55 billion this year.