Last week, the South Korean giant has introduced its report for the fourth quarter of last year, which, to put it mildly, did not live up the expectations of experts. Samsung revenues were not as high as predicted experts and analysts attribute this to the high pressure from its main rival – the manufacturer of iPhone, the news agency writes Bloomberg.
According to a press release from Samsung, net sales in the last quarter was 7.2 trillion won, or 6.7 billion in dollar terms, while analysts expected a profit of 8.2 trillion won. Operating income from the mobile division of the company amounted to 5.47 trillion won against 6.7 trillion in the third quarter of 2013. Then this figure was a record for Samsung.
Experts said the drop in revenues caused by the corporation directly Apple, which introduced two new smartphone last fall. The company was able to realize nine million iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c only for the first three days of sales. To achieve this level of sales with Galaxy S4 Samsung needed a quarter.
In late December, representatives of the Korean company reported that Samsung expects to sell 13 million smartphones Galaxy S4 in the fourth quarter. The real figure was much lower, and it is quite alarming bell for the top management of Samsung. For comparison, in the third quarter of 2013, sales totaled Galaxy S4 17 million units, and the smartphone itself was introduced in March last year.
Edition of Fortune recently published consensus forecast of analysts for iPhone sales in the last quarter – 55 million smartphones. Apple should report its findings as early as this Monday, so soon we will learn about its successes from the lips of Tim Cook.
So, despite the onset of the Christmas sales season, Samsung could not even close closer to Apple in the number of smartphones sold in high price segment. However, a similar situation was observed during the whole of last year.
Samsung expected to present its new smartphone Galaxy S5 in April this year. According to rumors, the gadget is equipped with a fingerprint reader, but it is possible that Koreans come up with some innovative technology that, however, once again did not find practical applications for users.
Read another very interesting article about alternative energy of the Sun, water and air.
