Samsung warns profit to fall 60% • Hacker News Board

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#61

Post by oblio » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 6:58 AM UTC

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #59

malux85 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when the iPhone came out it was very expensive but significantly ahead of competition. People paid for it, even people who couldn’t afford it found a way to pay for an iPhone The huge cash burst into Apple meant everyone was scrambling to deal with them. Then economies of scale, negotiating leverage with third parties and sheer momentum propelled them

> Because when the iPhone came out it was very expensive but significantly ahead of competition. From a CPU perspective, they still are: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re... (for the rest of the features, that's indeed debatable) Fun fact: Samsung made the chip for the first iPhone. Steve Jobs was so dissatisfied with the experience that Apple bought PA Semi to design the chips in-house.

The thing is, that CPU bit is not really relevant for the average consumer, anymore. Flagship phone CPUs have been good enough for web browsing and casual app use for about 2 years.

Not that I'm against extra horse power, we'll find a use for it. But we're in "desktop land", almost, for smartphone CPUs. They're good enough.

The real smartphone battles now are in camera quality, gaming oomph and battery usage.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#62

Post by Kiro » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

forkLding wrote: post #4

Signals to the end of an era, smartphones have matured and are becoming ubiquitous like laptops. Moreover, the most profitable smartphones belong to Apple which held 86% of smartphone profits generated in the industry in 2018. Samsung was competing more in the mid to affordable segments so it was bound to start losing once others started catching up, especially since its Chinese competitors are basically giving up pr…

While your comment looks professional it's complete nonsense and has nothing to do with the topic in question. Typical Hacker News commentary in other words.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#63

Post by oblio » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #21

zaphirplane wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Samsung was competing more in the mid to affordable I assumed Samsung’s android phones were the top of the range. Who do you think is the high end android phone brand

They make high end phones, but their sales volume doesn't make up for the margins. In terms of manufactured phone volume, the Galaxy line makes up a tiny fraction of their total sales. I feel like the vast majority of the Android ecosystem foot gunned itself pushing its way out of reasonably priced device segments. There really are no modern equivalents to the Moto G or Nexus 5 or even early One Plus phones in the $1…

Nokia, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Huawei, in order of hardware + software combo. Nokia had slightly less interesting hardware but runs stock Android (= good update policy).

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#64

Post by anthony_doan » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 7:10 AM UTC

foobar1962 wrote: post #55

sanxiyn wrote: post #6

Comments here are out of their mind. Samsung's smartphone business hasn't been a profit center for quite some time. Majority of profit came from DRAM and NAND, and profit fall is directly attributable to recent price crash of both.

I just had a conversation with somebody who asserted that Apple was bad (proprietary etc) and Samsung was good, and that Apple was 3rd phone maker behind Samsung and Huawei. He may be right about Apple being 3rd, but Apple looks to be the only one making a decent profit from their phones. How do they manage that when they have to pay for both hardware and software development, when all the others get the software for…

> How do they manage that when they have to pay for both hardware and software development, when all the others get the software for free?

It's their ecosystem, all their hardwares work very well between each other. You have Apple messenger on a macbook connecting to your iphone. For android you need to download pushbullet. I'm not in the ecosystem I prefer Android but I can see why people such as consumer would continue to buy Apple stuff. I'm not entirely sure about their laptops though...

Also Apple make a lot of money from services such as itune and their app store. Itune made more than Spotify. It all works together with their close ecosystem.

It's a real pain to move from apple to android because text messages goes straight to apple server. You need to sign off and jump a hoop to get text message back to android. Also getting mp3 off of itunes or getting bandcamp mp3s on to itune. It's like LA fitness, at least in 2010, where if you want to cancel your gym membership you need to download the pdf from their website and then mail it to the provided address and then they'll charge you anyway one extra month.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#65

Post by praveenweb » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 7:11 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #61

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because when the iPhone came out it was very expensive but significantly ahead of competition. From a CPU perspective, they still are: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re... (for the rest of the features, that's indeed debatable) Fun fact: Samsung made the chip for the first iPhone. Steve Jobs was so dissatisfied with the experience that Apple bought PA Semi to design the chips in-house.

The thing is, that CPU bit is not really relevant for the average consumer, anymore. Flagship phone CPUs have been good enough for web browsing and casual app use for about 2 years. Not that I'm against extra horse power, we'll find a use for it. But we're in "desktop land", almost, for smartphone CPUs. They're good enough. The real smartphone battles now are in camera quality, gaming oomph and battery usage.

CPU bit might be relevant for those who care about Privacy. Apple markets the fact that all processing (some ML/AI stuff) is done on device and not on the cloud, hence requiring good processing power. But as you mentioned the battle is skewed towards Camera and Battery usage.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#66

Post by on_and_off » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 7:14 AM UTC

foobar1962 wrote: post #55

sanxiyn wrote: post #6

Comments here are out of their mind. Samsung's smartphone business hasn't been a profit center for quite some time. Majority of profit came from DRAM and NAND, and profit fall is directly attributable to recent price crash of both.

I just had a conversation with somebody who asserted that Apple was bad (proprietary etc) and Samsung was good, and that Apple was 3rd phone maker behind Samsung and Huawei. He may be right about Apple being 3rd, but Apple looks to be the only one making a decent profit from their phones. How do they manage that when they have to pay for both hardware and software development, when all the others get the software for…

I am of 2 minds about this.

On one hand, smartphones are more or less commodities now. Most established smartphone makers can make great phones (at this point I only compare cameras and even then, they also to all be great) so it is only natural that margins become pretty thin. But right now they are just too thin and the ecosystem is not really healthy.

We don't really need another Apple making huge margins on its smartphone business though.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#67

Post by eridius » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 7:17 AM UTC

anthony_doan wrote: post #64

foobar1962 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just had a conversation with somebody who asserted that Apple was bad (proprietary etc) and Samsung was good, and that Apple was 3rd phone maker behind Samsung and Huawei. He may be right about Apple being 3rd, but Apple looks to be the only one making a decent profit from their phones. How do they manage that when they have to pay for both hardware and software development, when all the others get the software for…

> How do they manage that when they have to pay for both hardware and software development, when all the others get the software for free? It's their ecosystem, all their hardwares work very well between each other. You have Apple messenger on a macbook connecting to your iphone. For android you need to download pushbullet. I'm not in the ecosystem I prefer Android but I can see why people such as consumer would cont…

You're saying Apple's making the money from the ecosystem, but that's not what the parent is asking. The parent is asking how Apple is making a money on each individual iPhone, which they absolutely are. Even if you never buy into the rest of the Apple ecosystem, merely purchasing an iPhone means Apple is making a profit from you.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#68

Post by joesb » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 7:34 AM UTC

anthony_doan wrote: post #64

foobar1962 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just had a conversation with somebody who asserted that Apple was bad (proprietary etc) and Samsung was good, and that Apple was 3rd phone maker behind Samsung and Huawei. He may be right about Apple being 3rd, but Apple looks to be the only one making a decent profit from their phones. How do they manage that when they have to pay for both hardware and software development, when all the others get the software for…

> How do they manage that when they have to pay for both hardware and software development, when all the others get the software for free? It's their ecosystem, all their hardwares work very well between each other. You have Apple messenger on a macbook connecting to your iphone. For android you need to download pushbullet. I'm not in the ecosystem I prefer Android but I can see why people such as consumer would cont…

Lots and lots, I might even say majority, of people who bought iPhones don't have Mac or any other Apple device but iPhones.

It's also only recently that the Apple ecosystem is relevant with Continuity stuffs. Before that, iPods, iPhones and iPads are all very isolated and don't require Apple ecosystem much.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#69

Post by megablast » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 7:40 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #21

zaphirplane wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Samsung was competing more in the mid to affordable I assumed Samsung’s android phones were the top of the range. Who do you think is the high end android phone brand

They make high end phones, but their sales volume doesn't make up for the margins. In terms of manufactured phone volume, the Galaxy line makes up a tiny fraction of their total sales. I feel like the vast majority of the Android ecosystem foot gunned itself pushing its way out of reasonably priced device segments. There really are no modern equivalents to the Moto G or Nexus 5 or even early One Plus phones in the $1…

Yes, but their high end makes the majority of the profits. Which is what we are talking about here.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#70

Post by tanilama » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

AFascistWorld wrote: post #32

axaxs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not anti Samsung, and having used Xiaomi, definitely not pro for them. That said, it's hard to deny the value they offer. In the premium market, Huawei is lapping them. Samsung used to vie for best camera. Now they're with Apple in lagging far behind the Pixel and P series.

Like I said, Huawei is great at marketing at least in China, their patriotism marketing has been so successful there. >In the premium market, Huawei is lapping them Where? In China? My personal opinion is when you dive deep, Huawei is more about marketing hype than substance. The tri-camera is Israel tech, they rely on Samsung for memory chip and OLED, things like their battery life achieved by furiously killing back…

> their patriotism marketing has been so successful there

If your goes to r/Android, Huawei is at least as popular as Samsung, and even more of a topic maker. And that has been the case for sometime now.

I have a Samsung S10E, but that is because I can't own a Huawei in US, for there is no customer support here.

TBH, S10 is the best phone Samsung has made in THREE years and I am quite happy with it. The past gens of Galaxies, are good but boring yet expensive. Huawei is as expensive, but they somehow find a way to excite the consumer base with, what I would call, useful gimmicks, like 6 cameras stuff. Oppo/Vivo (BBK and its subsidiaries) does the same, but more from the 'hide-the-front-camera' mechanics side.

It doesn't matter where the tech is coming from, Israel doesn't make their phones, what matters is here is to come up with a complete package that people would pay for it.

So it isn't really controversial to say the Chinese makes the best Android phone in the world today. It is just funny those those phones are nowhere to be found in US.