.. i was in Botswana in October .. there's a nice Samsung store in Gaborone
.. bought my fiance' a Galaxy Grand 2 .. a bit larger than my S3 ..
.. no Apple stores and no iPhones that i could see .. plenty of Nokia though
It was more bad news for Samsung in the third quarter of 2014, as the Korean smartphone maker saw its global market share shrink by nearly 8 per cent, year on year, with most of it going to Chinese rivals. According to the latest figures from Gartner, Samsung remains the worldwide smartphone king, but its market share was just …
>>.. i was in Botswana in October .. there's a nice Samsung store in Gaborone
Spooky coincidence, I was in Maun in October
>>.. bought my fiance' a Galaxy Grand 2 .. a bit larger than my S3 ..
Took my Chinese dual core 1.3Ghz, dual SIM, 3G (no 3G there for me) £35 new, went with my girlfriend, came back with my fiancée.
>>.. no Apple stores and no iPhones that i could see .. plenty of Nokia though
That's because iPhones are sold through Orange stores.
The iPlay store in the Masa Centre is an official reseller, closest thing to an Apple Store you'll get.
"Apple claimed 12.7 per cent of the market and shipped slightly more than half as many iPhones as Samsung shipped of its entire smartphone line."
As iPhones are Apple's entire smartphone line, this sentence appears to be constructed solely to belittle Samsung. All it actually says is that 12.7 is slightly more than half of 24.4. Without any change in meaning, the quoted sentence could have been written as "Samsung shipped almost twice as many smartphones as Apple." No difference, yet the relative perception of the two companies completely changes.
Yes, well, I'm sure you've heard the one about the two bored presidential limo drivers waiting in Moscow for a high-level meeting to end who engage in some impromptu racing (handily won by the US car). Since the ruckus was significant, the newspapers must say something about the incident, so the next day the headlines read: "US-USSR race sees our driver secure prestigious second place while US comes in second-to-last!"
The version I remember was that Krushchev plays Eisenhower at golf. Pravda reports "Krushchev plays US president at golf, scores twice as much." Izvestiya reports "Party secretary plays in golf match with president of degenerate capitalist USA, comes second; US president next to last". Novy Mir reports "In correct alignment with Marxist-Leninism, Krushchev treats capitalist game of golf as a joke."
That's a fair point but taken in the round it's worse news for Samsung than Apple.
Whatever the relative merits of iOS and Android, if anyone wants iOS they can only but it from Apple. The closest Samsung has is Touch-Wiz, which doesn't have the same draw as it's tied to Android and increasingly Google services.
Samsung are going to get eaten by the rise of the Chinese more than Apple because their point of distinction is so less defined or embedded. I expect Apple will continue a steady decline and settle at 8-10%, but I can't see where Samsung will settle.
It's a more or less perfect copy of the PC world with Apple using (often purely emotional) pulls and selling standard kit at margins Wintel vendors can only dream of - Nice work if you can get it.
Strategically, if they wanted to be a major long term player in the phone market, Samsung should have stuck with Tizen and gritted it out.
This is right – only constant innovation can help companies like Samsung and Apple from the havoc created by Chinese manufacturers. You are right they have to launch gadgets those can excite a consumer.
The price is another factor that plays its role beautifully when it comes to earn huge revenue. In past, why people switched to Samsung is because of high price of mobile devices offered by Apple.
Now the same thing is happening with Samsung here. The Chinese manufacturers are dumping a smartphone with nearly same feature at 1/3 of price offered by Samsung and hence consumers in growing market like in Indian subcontinent is getting attracted toward them.
However,I think Samsung is shifting its gear. They may provide new features in their smartphones that can surely excite a consumer. They are working on improving the phonebook of their smartphones and may be implementing emotional intelligence in it. This post is the basis of my statement.
https://greybmusings.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/samsung-patent-for-automatic-flight-mode-in-smartphone/
It says that they have filed a patent application for this feature. Similarly, they are working on other features like AR enabled smartphones that can help a teacher to take attendance or a user can get directions by just clicking pictures of his surroundings.
These sort of things when will be implemented will attract a consumer for sure.
-Pramod Negi
This is right – only constant innovation can help companies like Samsung and Apple from the havoc created by Chinese manufacturers. You are right they have to launch gadgets those can excite a consumer.
The price is another factor that plays its role beautifully when it comes to earn huge revenue. In past, why people switched to Samsung is because of high price of mobile devices offered by Apple.
Now the same thing is happening with Samsung here. The Chinese manufacturers are dumping a smartphone with nearly same feature at 1/3 of price offered by Samsung and hence consumers in growing market like in Indian subcontinent is getting attracted toward them.
However,I think Samsung is shifting its gear. They may provide new features in their smartphones that can surely excite a consumer. They are working on improving the phonebook of their smartphones and may be implementing emotional intelligence in it. This post is the basis of my statement.
https://greybmusings.wordpress.com/2014/11/12/samsung-innovative-phonebook-that-detects-emotions-of-caller/
It says that they have filed a patent application for this feature. Similarly, they are working on other features like AR enabled smartphones that can help a teacher to take attendance or a user can get directions by just clicking pictures of his surroundings.
These sort of things when will be implemented will attract a consumer for sure.
-Pramod Negi