This is something that we often hear towards the end of an year, it’s said that Samsung plans on shipping fewer smartphones in the coming year, that’s what was said at the end of 2014 but we didn’t really see that happen in 2015. We’re only a few days away from 2016 and once again word on the street in South Korea is that Samsung has begun notifying local retailers in its home country that it’s going to ship 12 percent fewer smartphones in 2016 than it did this year.
It merits mentioning here that no official announcement has been made by Samsung to reflect this change in its strategy, the report merely cites local retailers in South Korea who claim to have been told by the company that it’s going to ship fewer smartphones in the new year.
Analysts expect the company to focus more on affordable smartphones for emerging markets as the company’s mobile business seeks to boost its profits. It’s no longer enjoying the same returns from the high-end segment of the market as it appears to have saturated for now.
Then again, that’s really not going to be different from the strategy that many other OEMs are following, they too are struggling with a saturated high-end segment of the global smartphone market and think that affordable handsets for emerging markets are a good bet at this point in time.
It remains to be seen though whether this translates into less high-end models from Samsung in 2016 and more mid-range and low-end smartphones in the coming year. We’ll certainly be keeping a close eye on it all.
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