‘Why change, when it ain’t broke’? That’s basically what Samsung has been crying about over the last few years, but now it looks like that the company sure is broke. The Korean smartphone major just announced its latest quarter results, and it is surprising to see the company being in the dumps with losses, breaking their all-time records.According to recent results, it has lost over 60% of its operating profit from last year, which for any major conglomerate is ominous. It’s hard to blame the company for not trying, but the effort hasn’t really been that forthcoming which is now becoming more and more evident. “The operating profit reached 4.06 trillion won ($3.85 billion) in the third quarter, down 60.05 percent from a year earlier”, Xinhua cited from a company statement mentioned by IANS in its report.
Smartphone business has been Samsung’s biggest revenue churner, and the fact that their total numbers are falling clearly suggest that it’s time for Samsung seniors to look seriously into the matter. It’s not about the company offering plastic built high-end phones; it’s not even about their desire to dish out Exynos-powered devices. The root problem facing the brand is much deeper. What made Samsung, the sweetheart of every prospective Indian mobile consumer was its Indian-connect, their understanding of how the market works in terms of pricing and product. There have been quite a few products that got positive response, enforcing the company’s position in the country (dismantling the one-major Nokia was no easy task).
But the likes of Xiaomi, Motorola and Asus for that matter have found chinks in the Korean’s armory and decided to pounce on their misplaced priorities. The need for Samsung to match and even better Apple, as a mission has hit back at the brand itself. They really need to refurbish their product line up and rope in people with right kind of credentials to bring them back to their original position. Otherwise, the sight of seeing Xiaomi or Micromax taking over the reign of the mobile space in the near future is very much realistic.
We’ll wait for Samsung’s next move and hope it’s the right one—for their sake as well as that of the industry.
Image: cultofandroid.com