Weak GS4 sales and expensive marketing leads to Samsung earnings miss

[dainthomas]

Why does Samsung make the most profits? Because marketing hypes it up. There is some marketing hype for LG with the new Optimus G Pro advertisements in the World Baseball Classic.

LG's marketing for the Optimus G was practically non-existent. I think I saw a grand total of one commercial for it. Ever. And it's a great phone. Glad to hear they're trying to not make the same mistake again.

 

[lothar]

Unlike Samsung and other Chinese and Korean conglomerates who did not see a company they did not want to own, SONY has learned a harsh lesson about manufacturing and arrogance. Namely, owning them can be very expensive when things go bad. It's a lesson Samsung has yet to learn. Now, SONY is very dependent on ODMs and, like Apple, can cut them loose when times get tough.

As for Dan Loeb, I think what he's doing is good overall for SONY but he will not get his way. This is a Japanese firm, after all, and old habits die hard. They don't like to be told what to do by outsiders. So, of course, they'll "study" his proposal but nothing major will come of it. However, it may make them tweak their strategy. Either way, I hope they start getting more competitive with Samsung and HTC, time-wise. Their products are usually slower and come out later.

The other side of that coin is that AMD has certainly learned a harsh lesson about not being able to control your own manufacturing and arrogance.

Yes...AMD selling it's fabs certainly itself and others a harsh lesson.
If they had kept their fabs, they wouldn't be in this debacle of being behind Intel by 2 process nodes and offering inferior processors rather than depending on GlobalFoundries or some other fab.

People are reaching by making a mountain out of a mole hill. Those Samsung fabs can easily be retooled to make many things where ever the money follows. SoC, DRAM, Flash, etc...

 

[Crono]

I don't care about investors. This is a non-story to me, except the fact that Samsung basically massively outsold Sony and HTC's equivalent high end phones. Prior success and a huge marketing budget did its work.

 

[lothar]

If advertising and marketing determine sales, one would think Windows Phones should have picked up a bigger piece of pie? I see their ads most often on TV.

Not sure what's going on with Windows Phone, but I've also seen more of their ads on TV than Samsung, Apple, HTC, LG, and Verizon "DROID" commercials combined.
That said, there is more to advertising and marketing than just TV.

 

[Dari]

The other side of that coin is that AMD has certainly learned a harsh lesson about not being able to control your own manufacturing and arrogance.

Yes...AMD selling it's fabs certainly itself and others a harsh lesson.
If they had kept their fabs, they wouldn't be in this debacle of being behind Intel by 2 process nodes and offering inferior processors rather than depending on GlobalFoundries or some other fab.

People are reaching by making a mountain out of a mole hill. Those Samsung fabs can easily be retooled to make many things where ever the money follows. SoC, DRAM, Flash, etc...

Really? You think it's quick and easy to switch products at a fab?

 

[lothar]

Really? You think it's quick and easy to switch products at a fab?

Really? You think not switching or making something else would be better than doing nothing at the fab?

 

[WelshBloke]

Really? You think not switching or making something else would be better than doing nothing at the fab?

It's standard practice to transition fabs to different products as newer fabs come online isn't it?

 

[Dari]

Really? You think not switching or making something else would be better than doing nothing at the fab?

It's standard practice to transition fabs to different products as newer fabs come online isn't it?

This is what he said:

Those Samsung fabs can easily be retooled

I don't think it's as easy as you think. Unless there is some modular standard for fabs. I think it costs them hundreds of millions of dollars to retool and it takes time.