When it comes to Android OEMs, Samsung is in the lead. In fact last we checked, Samsung had over 50% of the Android market share in North American markets, so safe to say it looks like the company is doing pretty well, or is it? Well as it turns out it looks like Samsung might not be doing so hot.
According to Samsung’s latest earnings, it has been revealed that the South Korean tech giant has seen their business profits for mobile devices drop as much as 74%. To be fair Samsung had already warned the public and their investors that the third quarter would not be a very good one for the company, and with a 74% in profits, it certainly looks that way.
At the same time this has also affect the company-wide operating profit which dropped by 60% which is the lowest it has ever been since Q2 2011. So what gives? Why is Samsung doing so badly all of a sudden? Well the company is blaming increased competition in the market along with higher marketing costs.
This is unsurprising considering that Samsung spent a whopping $14 billion on marketing in 2013, so perhaps it’s time that Samsung starts scaling back a bit. Saturation in the high-end segment is also hurting the company as it was revealed that the majority of customers ended up purchasing mid-range devices as opposed to Samsung’s high-end products.
Of course for a company the size of Samsung, this is hardly a doom and gloom situation. We expect that come 2015 that Samsung will be approaching the market differently and hopefully will post better results.
Filed in . Read more about Samsung.