Samsung warns profit to fall 60% • Hacker News Board

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#81

Post by AFascistWorld » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 9:20 AM UTC

tanilama wrote: post #70

AFascistWorld wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Best" is subjective, r/Android might make you feel it's a big comunity, everyone should buy Android instead of Apple to avoid "being ripped-off" and not buying the best specs is stupid; but you should realize it's really just geek hobbists.

I used to be one of them, constantly tweaking it, ROMs, root and flash, compile my own ROM, compare specs and eager to know what's new, but that's long ago, I've quit being a slave to my phone, I've realized I just need my phone to work when it needs to(like average people?), and I spend no more than 20 minutes per day on it now and never waste time on the phone itself.

Average people don't know and won't understand specs, that's where brands like Oppo and Vivo thrive, they are good at marketing, hell if you go into deep China you will hear salesgirls peddling OPPO/VIVO as the best of the best in the world.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#82

Post by zaphirplane » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 9:22 AM UTC

forkLding wrote: post #18

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

Just comparing smartphones in general, not really Android vs IOS. Samsung was probably the top-range Android phones in terms of pricing.

That the best android phone is at best a midrange smart phone. Is an interesting and very unlikely to be a broadly shared opinion

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#83

Post by tooltalk » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 9:36 AM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #36

evancox100 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about it? I'm sure that could also be affecting their earnings, we'll have to wait for the earnings report to find out the extent of it. But the current analysis and reporting right now points to major issues in the component side of the business. Also, remember that Samsung is still selling these components to Huawei, Oppo, etc., so it's not a total loss when they take market share.

On the other hand, Samsung's smartphone market share is pretty important for its nascent non-memory component business, because Huawei won't use Exynos, neither AP nor 4G and 5G modem.

>On the other hand, Samsung's smartphone market share is pretty important for its nascent non-memory component business, ...

not sure why that matters? the nascent non-memory component business is not the major cost-center, or money-maker for the company. Samsung's doesn't always use internal parts in their products -- take for instance, Sharp, which had been Samsung's LCD panel supplier until Foxconn took over. There are also rumors that some lower end Samsung smartphone use displays made by BOE.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#84

Post by benj111 » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #46

graton wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with the price crash the prices are still higher than 2016. I purchased memory in 2016 and the price now is still about 30% higher than 2016.

May be that was early 2016 or mid 2016? The price hike started in somewhere near the the last quarter of 2016. The current price are already back to 2016 average, we expect the price to keep falling as we have yet to see any price floor. At the current rate, with nothing in sight to turn things around, we should see the early 2016 prices this year, and expect to see historic new low in DRAM $/GB within the next 12-14…

"we expect the price to keep falling"

Who's 'we'? Are you speaking on behalf of someone. Your sig doesn't hint at anything.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#85

Post by tooltalk » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

axaxs wrote: post #5

Samsung's problems are just beginning. They're getting destroyed on every front, and basically all comes from China. On the phone front, they were used to selling phones at premium pricing only relying on their brand name. You don't have to look past Nokia or Blackberry to see how that will end. They're not really innovative, and while their devices are generally quality, they've pushed the price point too high. Xiao…

>On the phone front, they were used to selling phones at premium pricing only relying on their brand name.

Welcome to the groovy train, you are about 5 years late to the party.

>On the chip front, TSMC has been outpacing them for years, and is getting all the contracts.

Actually TSMC more or less created the whole outsourcing fab business in the late 80's and has led the outsourcing business for the past 30 years. The fact that Samsung went from nothing in mid 2000's to #2 today is quite remarkable, even surpassing TSMC in 14nm and the first EUV rollout.

> The only thing I can think of that Samsung does better than anyone else is OLED, and others are catching up very quickly.

Samsung has been known for their displays for decades. On mobile OLED, Samsung had pretty much 95% market share for the past decade or so and I keep hearing about competitors in China and Taiwan that are in fact still 3-4 generation behind and busy sending spies to copy and steal SDS's IP, so I doubt it.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#86

Post by tooltalk » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:01 AM UTC

vvanders wrote: post #16

axaxs wrote: post #5

Samsung's problems are just beginning. They're getting destroyed on every front, and basically all comes from China. On the phone front, they were used to selling phones at premium pricing only relying on their brand name. You don't have to look past Nokia or Blackberry to see how that will end. They're not really innovative, and while their devices are generally quality, they've pushed the price point too high. Xiao…

It's somewhat ironic given that Samsung drove HTC out if the market by dropping millions in marketing dollars.

try BILLIONs.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#87

Post by benj111 » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:03 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…

"Apple which held 86% of smartphone profits"

"Chinese competitors are basically giving up profits for growth"

It interesting how Apple have managed to capture so much of the profit in the industry, and consumers are willing to go with them rather than one of their essentially subsidised rivals.

I wonder how long this situation can continue for, some kind of reversion to the mean has to happen eventually.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#88

Post by lrem » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:16 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #49

a_bonobo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is more background in other articles on Samsung's prediction: >Samsung said it received fewer orders from cloud service providers, such as Amazon, as well as from handset makers, such as Apple, which has recently seen a slowdown of its own smartphone sales. This low demand in the cloud services and smartphone markets for both DRAM and NAND flash chips have pushed the prices of these chips down. >According to Bl…

I have never trusted this Datacentre narratives because it doesn't make sense. On one hand you have you Intel saying they can not supply enough CPU because of high demands, on the other hand Component manufacture are blaming the low Supply in the channel for their lower than expected sales. All while AMD is taking server and desktop side market shares, no matter how small the percentage that is. I think it basically…

These are not at odds. You want your machines to be uniform. If Intel calls you saying they'll deliver only two out of the ten thousand Xeon 1234-5 units you ordered this quarter, you call Samsung and cancel 80% of the order there.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#89

Post by toomuchequate » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:31 AM UTC

zaphirplane wrote: post #13

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…

> 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

Im curious if people find Samsung products top of the line. I thought they were a big advertiser similar to Apple, selling low to mid range products at heavy markups.

My S5 was awful with multiple bugs, quickly dead samsung SSD, my grandfathers smart TV was slow despite being bought in 2018, and horror stories about Samsung appliances.

Re: Samsung warns profit to fall 60%

#90

Post by Beldin » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:36 AM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #71

oblio wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Flagship phone CPUs have been good enough for web browsing and casual app use for about 2 years. I think it's been longer. I'm on a non-flagship from last year, watching YouTube in PiP mode while writing this comment. Way more than necessary power for causing use.

Depends of course on your use case. I've been using my flagship phone for 7 years now. It has fulfilled all my needs without any problems, with one hand tied behind its back even.

Probably also a case of modest needs, but still.