Samsung’s Earnings Problems in a Paragraph

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Samsung announced its earnings for the fiscal second quarter of the year. Revenue was up 9% to 57.46 trillion won quarter over previous quarter. Operating income also rose 9% to 5.93 trillion won on the same basis. However, the division that includes its smartphone operations did poorly. Operating earnings dropped 3% quarter over previous quarter to 6.26 trillion won.

The really depressing news was in the forecast for that division:

Expect smartphone and tablet markets growth to continue under strong seasonality, while competition to intensify led by new product launches
– Smartphone : Expect balanced growth in DM and EM
∙ Developed markets : LTE replacement demand to continue, and expect competition for year-end promotions
∙ Emerging markets : Expect ramp up growth led by mass-market smartphone, including China
– Tablet : Expect high growth in both DM and EM
∙ Expect competition to intensify as new product offerings to expand

In other words, competition finally has caught up to Samsung, as it did to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL). This is more proof in the market that the sales cycle for smartphones has slowed. With it, Samsung’s growth opportunities have tapered off, as have Apple’s, based on its most recent earnings announcement.

Being the market share leader in a market that no longer has magnetic attraction makes a company lose its luster quickly. That is what has happened to Samsung.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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