Samsung chuckles, swerves around Apple's Q1 phone sales crash Samsung delivered what Apple couldn’t in the first three months of 2016 - increased smart phone sales. The chaebol today reported overall group net profit of 5.25 trillion won ($4.5bn), up 5.6 per cent for calendar Q1 on sales that grew 5.6 per cent to 49.7 trillion won ($43bn). The giant’s mobile unit reported eight per cent …
You know what drove me to Samsung over Apple (was an apple user for many years)
- Feeling actually in control of my phone
- Not having to use things like itunes - I just drag and drop videos, music and photos onto the Samsung.
- Removeable back - I can swap the battery out in 10 seconds and be back at 100% - no charge fear when you have three very light spare batteries (although not all do this, my note 4 edge does).
Yeah, I don't think it's as easy to use as an iPhone, but they do feel better as an actual user
Well, you can't actually remove the back on the S7...
Was this a canned comment from a couple of years ago?
I stuck to my Note 4 instead of "upgrading" precisely because I can still swap the battery and I have a micro SD card slot - and of course, Big Brother Apple isn't present, which started to bother me mainly because it wastes too much of my time to keep jail-breaking the f*kkers for each update.
Samsung's garbage is less difficult to get rid of - permanently...
I'm no fan of any corporation's bullshit bonanza, I'll just take whichever is the lesser annoyance.
Well, yes this really isn't like-for-like: Samsung releases a new phone and see sales rise. Nevertheless, given that the market seems to have topped out, any growth is impressive.
The real story behind Apple's numbers is that it is reaching the plateau that everyone else reached two years ago: expanding into China was very good business for Apple. And even with declining sales it's still trousering most of the industry's profits.
But you do have to wonder whether they have any new tricks up their sleeve. The IPhone SE is pretty underwhelming and Apple is nothing like as well prepared to deal with the multi-tier consumer market as others are. Both the IPad Pro and the watch have failed to take off and where are the new Macs?
There's already a lot of hype about an IPhone 7 in the autumn but that could end up being like Samsung's 5 – an impressive phone in itself (I like mine a lot) – but not really good enough for lots of new sales. It's a big ask.
In the meantime Samsung and Huawei and others are ramping up the development cycle in response to the ever improving competition from the low end.
Is Apple also ready to crank things up? How about some ARM-based Macbooks? I'd buy one unseen. Or are they going to continue to play it safe?
Why would you buy an ARM Macbook "sight unseen"? How will it differ from an x86 Macbook, other than being slower and having a lot less software? Maybe they can price it a bit lower, and due to its lower performance it might have a bit longer battery life, but I don't really see the point.
Why would it be slower?
The intelligent measure of performance isn't the fastest chip in raw performance, but the fastest chip for heat produced. The future of everyday computing is the new MacBook, not systems with cooling fans. Sorry measured using the most relevant basis, ARM is simply faster.
No one but this author has dared invent that the more than usual decline of iPhone sales in Apple's Q2 (not Q1) was a "crash". It is also invention that Samsung is enjoying any 'chuckles' over Apple. Samsung's too worried about its horrible profit margin, hacking of their Samsung Pay and 'Smart' Home systems, loss of manufacturing contracts from Apple, the shutting down of their Milk Music service, its declined sales and poor product reviews of a variety of their products. That's why Samsung has recently been slashing thousands of employees.
Meanwhile, Apple continues to do very well. Their actual Q1 was extremely profitable. We'll see if their iPhone sales recover with their new releases. If I want the best, it's still Apple, as usual.
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