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Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

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Re: Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

#41

Post by dereg »

jhuni wrote: post #33

Well overtaking Apple is a good start, we shouldn't stop until Apple tyranny is totally wiped off the face of the Earth.

Samsung is indisputably more "tyrannical" than Apple. The corporation has unsurpassed political influence in South Korea. For instance, scumbag Chairman (former CEO) Lee Kun-Hee is a nepotist and admitted guilt to political bribery in 2008. Guess what? He paid his way out of jail time and was even pardoned by LMB in 2009.

Samsung also has tremendous media influence in the nation. The company influences the media by giving or withdrawing advertising, giving scholarships to journalists, or suing the critical media. As a result, their corporate misdeeds get swept under the rug. The company uses the press as a means to control the press rather than sell their products. Samsung accounts for almost one-fifth of the entire nation's GDP. It's no surprise they are the nation's largest advertiser.

Corporate influence in the USA is nothing compared to the influence of the chaebol in Korea.

Re: Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

#42

Post by tjogin »

mtkd wrote: post #17

26% of the iPhone 4 was manufactured by Samsung: http://www.economist.com/node/21525685 Samsung have for a long time been a bigger player in the smartphone market than they look from their device sales alone.

Sure they have, and as long as we count parts and phones, rather than revenues, or better yet, profits, they will always be "bigger" than Apple, in that sense.

I have a feeling they'd rather be more profitable though.

Re: Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

#43

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #21
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post is all very reasonable, but do you not realise that this quote ... "And pretty much all Android phone manufacturers are operating on pretty thin margins because of the competition." ... simply isn't true, and the only reason you think that is because it has become an accepted truth in the Apple echo-chamber? (Mostly by intentionally fudging between mobile phone and smartphone numbers depending on whichever…

It may be changing but these figures are from Q2 this year and are pretty supportive: http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/apple-captured-two-thirds-o... Morotola Mobility just posted another loss in the last few days, LG have been losing money for 2 years now with no sign of turning it round. HTC margins are "disappointing" and their share price has dropped considerably in the last few months in large part because of th…

From eyeballing that chart it appears he's counting the whole of Apple's profits towards that graph despite the title being "Operating Profit from Mobile Phones".

I don't consider Asymco an independant source, indeed, they are a key part of the Apple echo-chamber that created this myth. (I mean what kind of pseudo- mobile-phone market analyst gets everything about Android, Symbian and Windows Phone wrong? He even fluffed the iPhone numbers last time, so he's not even a one-trick-pony).

Re: Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

#46

Post by cooldeal »

jamesrom wrote: post #29
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They set out to make the most money." It really worries me that there's a new breed of Apple fan that actually believes this. In reality they set out to build the best device (for affluent, white, middle-aged, American males with a taste for minimalism) and semi-accidentally became fashionable status symbols. The crowing about making the most money was just fanboy bragging because every other stat they bragged about…

So you're upset that Apple fans are claiming that Apple set out to make a lot of money instead of claiming they set out to make the best device? That sounds backwards to me.

I guess the beef is that the metric keeps changing. Before Android took over the market crown it was all about unit sales and marketshare percentage that everyone touted. Once Android took over, the metric changed.

For example, Windows Server makes billions per quarter and probably is the Server OS that makes the most money for it's maker. But you won't find that argument on HN to say that Windows Server dominates the server OS market. In fact some believe that Windows has no viable presence in servers.

Re: Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

#47

Post by davidw »

tjogin wrote: post #42
mtkd wrote: post #17

26% of the iPhone 4 was manufactured by Samsung: http://www.economist.com/node/21525685 Samsung have for a long time been a bigger player in the smartphone market than they look from their device sales alone.

Sure they have, and as long as we count parts and phones, rather than revenues, or better yet, profits, they will always be "bigger" than Apple, in that sense. I have a feeling they'd rather be more profitable though.

As a consumer, I think I'd rather buy from the guy that's, yes, profitable, so they don't disappear, but not the one that's making quite so huge margins on the stuff they sell me.

Re: Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

#48

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #43
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be changing but these figures are from Q2 this year and are pretty supportive: http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/apple-captured-two-thirds-o... Morotola Mobility just posted another loss in the last few days, LG have been losing money for 2 years now with no sign of turning it round. HTC margins are "disappointing" and their share price has dropped considerably in the last few months in large part because of th…

From eyeballing that chart it appears he's counting the whole of Apple's profits towards that graph despite the title being "Operating Profit from Mobile Phones". I don't consider Asymco an independant source, indeed, they are a key part of the Apple echo-chamber that created this myth. (I mean what kind of pseudo- mobile-phone market analyst gets everything about Android, Symbian and Windows Phone wrong? He even flu…

> From eyeballing that chart it appears he's counting the whole of Apple's profits towards that graph despite the title being "Operating Profit from Mobile Phones".

I think you need to look closer. While Apple don't break profit data down by product line (I don't believe) he's not that cack handed. If you read through the comments you'd see that he won't use the Samsung telecoms unit figures as these are meaningless in this context so it seems unlikely that he'd use an even more crass approximation for Apple (and this can be confirmed by checking the number he uses against the number Apple publish - they're not the same. If you wish to confirm this remember Apple's Q2 is not calendar Q2).

> I don't consider Asymco an independant source [...]

You may not like his views but he shows data, he shows his working, he answers questions in the comments and on twitter about why he's done something a certain way. Hell, when he messes up public predictions he even rakes over his own errors publicly in more detail than anyone else would.

In the face of this level of openness simply saying you don't consider him an independent source isn't a good argument if you don't show that his data or working is wrong, or provide contrary evidence.

Please show some numbers that show that right now someone other than Samsung is getting anything close to Apple level profit margins on handsets.

Re: Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

#49

Post by Retric »

davidw wrote: post #47
tjogin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they have, and as long as we count parts and phones, rather than revenues, or better yet, profits, they will always be "bigger" than Apple, in that sense. I have a feeling they'd rather be more profitable though.

As a consumer, I think I'd rather buy from the guy that's, yes, profitable, so they don't disappear, but not the one that's making quite so huge margins on the stuff they sell me.

Huge margins tend to come from good software, and I would much rather have better software than care what the manufacture's costs are.

Re: Samsung Overtakes Apple as World’s Biggest Smartphone Seller

#50

Post by brudgers »

tjogin wrote: post #42
mtkd wrote: post #17

26% of the iPhone 4 was manufactured by Samsung: http://www.economist.com/node/21525685 Samsung have for a long time been a bigger player in the smartphone market than they look from their device sales alone.

Sure they have, and as long as we count parts and phones, rather than revenues, or better yet, profits, they will always be "bigger" than Apple, in that sense. I have a feeling they'd rather be more profitable though.

Comparing "Samsung profits" to Apple's profits is meaningless - Samsung is not a single entity but a group of 83 interlocked companies (chaebol) which is largely controlled by the founder's decedents.

As a matter of scale and impact, Samsung accounts for 13% of South Korea's GDP.

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