back to article Samsung faces down TAB and smartphone MOUNTAIN HORROR

Samsung has confirmed sluggish sales of smartphones and tablets combined with efforts to shift the stock mountain that cast a shadow over Europe, denting group sales and profits for calendar Q2. The Korean chaebol has been out of step with falling market demand and as exclusively revealed by The Channel back in May, Sammy UK …

  1. Robert E A Harvey

    Oldest problem in the book

    Look mate, we've all got one.

    Everyone interested already has one, and is paying through the nose for connectivity. It's a mature market, like electric cookers or vacuum cleaners. Or, for example, desktop PCs. I'll buy another one when I have to, not because of 'shiney'.

    1. getHandle

      Re: Oldest problem in the book

      Can't interest you in an iThingy then ;-)

    2. Tom 35

      Re: Oldest problem in the book

      Yes, join CDs and flat screen TVs.

      Maybe if they make them 3D... that worked so well for TV.

  2. Frankee Llonnygog

    Peak Samsung?

    Where the underlying mountain is made of unsold stuff, obviously.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Peak Samsung?

      My account manager at a well known UK operator called me at 7PM at night late June.

      He had 2000 unsold Galaxy S4 to get rid off. He was ready to let them go for £150.

      Desperate or what..

      AC for obvious reasons.

    2. Mage Silver badge

      Re: Peak Samsung?

      They'll have to sell more diggers, chips, aircons, fridges, generators etc.

      At least they are not a one trick pony.

      1. Frankee Llonnygog

        Re: Peak Samsung?

        Have you tried playing Angry Birds on a Samsung digger? I demolished my local branch of Carphone Warehouse and still got a rubbish score.

  3. Tom 7

    Have a word with Ubuntu

    and see if you can get them to help you put their Linux on them.

    They've already got some of it working and I'd pay for one just to see what apps are usable on the go....

  4. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Proprietary UI crap

    Get rid of Touchpisswiz and I'll consider it against my $150 Moto G

    I don't want your buggy attempt at what you think I want. What I want is Android... or I'd be buying Apple or Microsoft.

    1. masterofobvious

      Re: Proprietary UI crap

      It's called Samsung Galaxy S 4 Google Play edition.

      HTC do Play editions as well.

      Not sure why people haven't heard of these...

  5. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Prices

    The model still seems to be "Charge through the nose when it's new."

    Which is a pretty good disinscentive to upgrading.

  6. Don Jefe

    Oldest Business Problem: Expanded

    E A Harvey up there almost nailed it, and he is certainly correct in what he says, but he's looking at it from a consumer perspective, not from a business vantage.

    If you're in manufacturing it is absolutely, 100% impossible, cannot be done, ever; to have your sales and production units in sync on purpose. It happens sometimes by accident, or colossal fuckup, but anyone who tells you it happened as a result of their foresight and deft planning is lying their ass off, or insane. I couldn't recommend buying any cold fusion or perpetual motion technology from such people either.

    Spend enough time in business and you'll hear everyone from analysts to middle management, general staff and those grundle scraping CEO's who write their own biographies, tell you all sorts of shit about what the 'mark of good corporate leadership' is. They're nearly always wrong. There is only one universal business trait which can truly be said to be shared across any and all successful manufacturing businesses.

    That trait is the ability to deal with the train wreck that occurs when sales and manufacturing operations don't jive. It's not a question of when that imbalance will occur, it's absolutely guaranteed to occur. Everybody in manufacturing knows this and if you're any good at the game, you know whatever plans/predictions the CEO/COO have are only there in case somebody asks to see 'the plan'.

    The actual plans involve things like special financing/subsidies to Channel partners for next quarter's orders, insanely complex reverse logistics schemes, crazy low pricing for educational customers as well as 'charitable' donations. The details don't matter, there are zillions of ways to deal with the problem, it's how you deal that problem that matters.

    My point in all of that, is that absolutely nothing can reliably be assessed about Samsung's company performance from a simple event like saturation of the Channel with some products. If this kind of thing didn't occur something would be terribly, terribly wrong.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oldest Business Problem: Expanded

      On par with: "Amateurs study tactics, professionals strategies, and Generals logistics." And for the same reason.

      1. Gordon 10
        Thumb Up

        Re: Oldest Business Problem: Expanded

        That'll explain the huge wodges of gift vouchers John Lewis were offering with the Galaxy tab range earlier in the year. From memory my Galaxy tab 7 mk3 was less than half RRP. Not that it was worth the RRP imo - crappy battery issues - have a google.

        More discounts on the way I suspect.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sailfish OS

    I wonder if Jolla's Sailfish OS would run on them? It looks great, although I've never tried it on anything. Maybe Samsung could unload a pile of those on Jolla cheap.

  8. fandom

    A cheap 12" tablet would be nice

    Hopefully, the Reg will tell us when the fire sale starts.

  9. robin thakur 1

    Not surprised

    I'm not at all surprised at this. Samsung's Touchwiz layer and "added features" over Android supposedly commands a premium price, and allows them to sell the Galaxy 5 and all the hundreds of other variants probably on the market for £500+ but they are deluding themselves. Having picked up a Galaxy 5 recently it was noticeably sluggish even after all the usual optimisations, typing slowed down and hung, the camera was too slow and the thing overheated awfully and charged slowly. The design was lousy and whilst it might not break as readily if one drops it (though neither does polystyrene) it hardly screams "premium flagship". The Galaxy 5 was more sluggish than the Iphone 5 I'd been using for 2 years and possibly more sluggish than the old Galaxy S3 that that replaced. This in an insanely powerful flagship phone and it is inexcusable for the price. Needless to say I rapidly swapped it out for a HTC One M8 to hold me over until the iPhone 6 releases and don't miss the numerous pointless features added by Samsung (especially that charging flap).

    When I can buy a generic Android device and not have to put up with this nonsense for a fraction of the cost (Nexus, 1+1 etc) and which is actually responsive, Samsung aren't going to be able to justify it for much longer. I wouldn't even consider picking up the Note 4 when it comes out for example. Apple is unlikely to suffer as bad because at least when you go and pay £500+ for one, it feels the part, and operates at a pace. They are more likely to gain and retain the premium crowd who refresh their devices yearly which then locks in all the aspirant purchasers. There is a reason Apple's share price has recovered as Samsung's has fallen.

  10. David Lawrence

    I ain't buying

    ...another Samsung device. For one they look nice but are over-priced. Perhaps it's an attempt to copy Apple's model - who knows?

    I had the original Galaxy S phone. Worked great at first but got slower and slower as the software got more and more bloated. I got rid of it when it was virtually unusable for even the basics such as sending an SMS, taking a photo of browsing the web.

    I upgraded to a Galaxy S3. Nice and fast at first.... now guess what? It's gone all slow, just like the old one. That seemed to co-incide with the S5 coming out. Coincidence? Possibly but I suspect not.

    It seems to keep downloading updates (at my expense) when I thought I had switched all that off. They seem to be mostly to do with SamsungApps (not interested, thanks) and a Samsung Account (what I want that for I have no idea).

    On top of that the PC Software (Kies) is a nasty, buggy resource-hogger. It was forever downloading massive updates which seemed mostly to be bug-fixes. It was touch and go as to whether it could successfully communicate with my phone when I connected it, and it kept nagging me that a new firmware update was available - when I had already applied it! Awful thing - it had to go and good riddance.

    My next phone will have a nice,fast CPU and a skinny OS and I will use apps to get the extra functionality I want, thanks very much.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: I ain't buying

      I agree that Kies is a piece of shit. Fortunately, however, as it conflicts with the Android MTP on MacOS I had to remove it.

      Regarding TouchWiz - there are bits of it I like over stock Android and bits I don't.

      Regarding the bundled apps - some of them have some good stuff in them like the camera and the music player, others are pretty meh

      I tried CyanogenMod on my S4 mini the other month and have stuck with it. It is faster than without but the reason I'm keeping it is to be able to manage my privacy settings now that nearly all apps are trying to access everything.

      The S5 continues the trend of incremental improvements: water resistance and an even better screen. Great if you need a new phone but not enough to tempt me from my current perfectly usable one.

    2. Wake up befor you sleep thru windows last crash...

      Re: I ain't buying

      Oh, come on, surely SameSong or Goo-face wouldn't copy Apple, nor would softie or anyone else... According to most of you PC fanboys on this site anyway... I've been reading your denials for awhile, I should know.

  11. Caesarius
    Mushroom

    Meteors (slightly off topic)

    Why does everyone say "meteoric rise"? Meteors fall, crash and burn (1). Not necessarily in that order. So we should say Samsung are becoming more meteoric, not less.

    (1) Hence icon

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