Samsung outstrips iPhone sales to ring up record profit

The Guardian ^ | Friday 27 April 2012 04.28 EDT | Associated Press

[SmokingJoe]

A surge in Galaxy smartphone sales fuelled earnings at Samsung Electronics to a record high in the first quarter, usually a tough season for the global consumer electronics industry, outshining handset rivals such as Nokia.

Samsung sold more smartphones in the first three months of the year than Apple and raked in more than 70% of its operating profit from mobile businesses. Shares in Samsung shot up nearly 3%.

Net profit nearly doubled from a year earlier to a record 5.05 trillion won (£2.75bn) for the quarter to 31 March.

Operating profit also hit a record high, at 5.85 trillion won, which was in line with expectations. Sales rose 22% from a year earlier to 45.3tn won.

Strong demand for high-end smartphones, such as the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy S2 introduced last year, helped mask lower profit from memory chips, another Samsung flagship business.

"It was a shock for semiconductor, a surprise for handset," said Lee Ka-keun, a Seoul-based analyst at Hana Daetoo Securities.

The Suwon, Korea-based company expects to outdo its record profit in the coming quarters. It will announce a new version of the Galaxy phone next week and global demand for personal computers is picking up, bringing more cash to memory chip-makers.

-------------------

Samsung's mobile communications division, which includes smartphones, pocketed 4.27tn won of operating profit in the quarter after seeing significant sales growth of high-end smartphones in developing markets including China, a key battlefield for mobile phone makers.

After narrowly beating Apple last year, Samsung's smartphone sales exceeded Apple's by a large margin in the first quarter. Strategy Analytics said Samsung became the world's top smartphone maker, selling 44.5m handsets in the January-March period, followed by Apple's 35.1m.

[antiRepublicrat]

Want to see what Google envisioned an Android phone looking like before the iPhone?

Looks like someone was aiming to copy the market leader, the RIM Blackberry. Then the iPhone came out, and the first Android phone to hit the market a year later looked like this:

That's all Android is, a copy of those who actually innovated, dangling a free OS to handset manufacturers so Google can make money on the back-end.

Apple is popular, which is why they're expensive, but people are catching on to the shortcomings.

iPhones cost about the same as high-end Android phones. I had an Android for two years, dumped it for an iPhone. No way am I going back.

[antiRepublicrat]

Or the GUI OS. Or the PDA (Psion 1984).

Actually, the term "PDA" was coined by Apple for the Newton in 1992, and the Newton was nothing like the preceding Psions. It makes you wonder what the Newton could have been had the project not been mismanaged so badly from its inception in 1987 (it was supposed to be a tablet, it was supposed to have a different OS, and management feared cannibalization of Mac sales).

At least one good thing came from the Newton to dominate today's PDAs (smart phones): the ARM architecture.

[antiRepublicrat]

Hey, didn't you try to deny that overall Android cell phone sales had overtaken iPhone sales when that phenomenon started as well?

I believe many of us were saying it had to eventually happen. It's no surprise that the combined sales of some of the biggest names in phones -- Samsung, HTC, Motorola, LG and Sony -- on all US carriers with dozens of models with price points starting at free could surpass the sales of one company, Apple, that for the longest time didn't sell a new phone for under $200, and that only on one carrier.

[antiRepublicrat]

Reality is that Apple is not first in their markets.

Like I always say, Apple isn't usually the first to do it, but often the first to do it right.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-—A leaked roadmap for Verizon says they will be releasing an HTC made phone similar to the Galaxy Note.-—

Excellent! I will wait. I was thinking of switching to AT&T.

[Eva]

ATT is the only company that has cell coverage at our house. We tried T-Mobile and had to work very hard to get out of the contract. We had to go outside every time we wanted to use our phones.

[Eva]

ATT is the only company that has cell coverage at our house. We tried T-Mobile and had to work very hard to get out of the contract. We had to go outside every time we wanted to use our phones.

I hate Verizon more than ATT. They are the only company that provided land lines at our house, but sold that to Frontier. Both companies refuse to provide internet or cable services. So, we are very dependent on ATT and we are happy with the service.

Verizon makes a practice of trying to collect uncollectible bills from people who had the number at an earlier date, if one client doesn’t pay, they go back to the previous client. We were being hounded by a Verizon collection agency because the people who had our number after us never paid their final bill. We weren’t even Verizon customers when we had the old number, and they told us to prove that we were not Verizon customers at the time. Who keeps old phone bills for years?

[Swordmaker]

There was quite a bit of GUI competition that predated Mac 1. And some of them were pretty kick butt (DESQView being one of my all time favorites).

Why don't you get some knowledge before you spout off? DESQview was released in JULY of 1985, one and a half YEARS after Apple released the Macintosh GUI... nor was it a full GUI.

Apple put a MULTI touch screen on a phone... not a touch screen... and phones prior to the Apple used STYLUS to interface... that could get lost. You make it dang obvious you really don't know what you are talking about...

[discostu]

DesqView still worked better than Mac (and Windows). And we ALL know about PARC, so regardless of which came before Mac we all know there was GUI before Mac.

And if you think a multitouch screen is that massive a difference you need to think again. It’s still a touch screen interface. And no they didn’t all need stylus, most of them what the stylus did was add precision, just like the styluses you get on the POS card machines in stores today, you don’t need it, it’s just there.

You really make it dang obvious you just thrash around desperate to find one little thing that’s beside the main point so you can claim Apple invented stuff everybody knows they didn’t. Which is why you need to constantly lie, throw insults, then whine that everybody else is a troll. I know your MO, I’ve seen it before, from you, abandon a section you’ve clearly lost, scramble about, find one little thing, usually by twisting what was said, and pretend that means you were right about everything. Meanwhile you’re actually wrong about everything because you’re pretending Apple did it first and they didn’t, not anything that actually matters. Ooh they added multitouch over the touch screens everybody else had on there, big effen deal, still a freaking touchscreen on a freaking cellphone with others did first. Get over yourself, get over Apple.

[ReignOfError]

And if you think a multitouch screen is that massive a difference you need to think again. It’s still a touch screen interface.

If you're not going to accept that there's a difference between a multi-touch capacitive screen and a resistive screen, if you dismiss the difference between smart phones and feature phones, if you make no distinction between a windows-icons-menus modern GUI and a multi-tasking environment with boxes of ASCII text, then you're trying to win an argument no one else is having by defining Apple's innovations out of existence.

I mean, a rotary dial was a touch interface when you get right down to it, the Motorola StarTac did more than just make calls and was therefore a "smartphone", and when you get right down to it there was nothing innovative about the Model T. It was basically just a faster, wheeled horse.

[Swordmaker]

And we ALL know about PARC, so regardless of which came before Mac we all know there was GUI before Mac.

PARC did NOTING with their GUI. They were a research organization. Apple did... and Apple did indeed invent a lot of the GUI that PARC had nothing to do with. You really don't know. I bet you believe Apple "stole" what they learned at PARC. Apple did not. They paid for the rights to what they learned from merely OBSERVING. . . they paid over $1 million in pre-IPO common stock which was later sold by Xerox for over $7 million dollars, and had it been kept till today, would be worth BILLIONS!

And if you think a multitouch screen is that massive a difference you need to think again. It’s still a touch screen interface. And no they didn’t all need stylus, most of them what the stylus did was add precision, just like the styluses you get on the POS card machines in stores today, you don’t need it, it’s just there.

And AGAIN you demonstrate your ignorance. Multitouch IS a massive difference over a mere single touch screen. . . and Apple has the patents on multitouch. Even today the cheapie touch screen phones are suggesting using styli to interface. The key that Apple added was ACCURACY... with multitouch.

When somebody like you says "everybody knows" it means that it likely IS NOT TRUE!

Ooh they added multitouch over the touch screens everybody else had on there, big effen deal, still a freaking touchscreen on a freaking cellphone with others did first. Get over yourself, get over Apple.

Do you realize how HARD it is to detect MULTIPLE contacts on a screen and to accurately locate those touches? And then to be able to handle the directionality and vector of the multiple movements of those touches? Microsoft used CAMERAS on their BIG TABLE to try to accomplish the same thing! Until Apple's engineers did it, no one else was successful in doing it. That is why APPLE has the patents. Lots of them. . . and deserves them.

You pick out a minor thing and claim that the minor thing is the same as the complex whole... when it is not even accomplished anywhere nearly the same... and then claim you have won... when you have only demonstrated your complete lack of understanding of the subject. A good example being the Limited features of the Psion's 4K, single line display, hand held electronic address book and calculator and YOUR claiming it is the same thing as the far more sophisticated Newton Personal Digital Assistant of years later when it lacked even basic time keeping functions like a calendar or a clock! YOU claim that because it had one or two minor features of a much more complex device, and is handheld, it must be counted as being identical. IT IS NOT... nothing could be further from the truth.

YOU do not understand at all what an invention is... not at all.

[discostu]

I accept there’s a difference, I just point out it’s not a difference that matters when you’re talking about whether or not a gadget is new. It’s like the difference between 3 on the tree and 4 on the floor, yes they’re different, but they’re both still stick shift cars. A smartphone with a touchscreen and a smartphone with a multi-touchscreen are still both smartphones with touchscreens.

And I wasn’t comparing DesqView to a “modern” GUI, I was comparing it to a clunky black and white GUI from the same era that was actually dramatically worse.

See that’s the problem with you guys, you always have to lie about what the other person said.

[discostu]

Oh look lots of yelling and lies and insults. The usual crap from the guy that insists everybody else is a troll.

PARC did one very important thing with their GUI: they made it BEFORE Apple did. thus Apple didn’t invent it, didn’t do it first.

Multitouch is no more different than 4 on the floor is from 3 on the tree. It’s still a touchscreen interface on a smartphone. Multitouch is adding a widget to a gadget, NOT inventing something actually NEW.

Just because it’s hard doesn’t make it a NEW device. See that was the contention that Apple doesn’t invent new devices. That’s what I said then you go off on some BS rant about patents on multi-touchscreens all of which are things they ADD to EXISTING concepts. Not NEW devices, not INVENTIONS.

I didn’t pick out a minor thing YOU’RE the one that keeps picking out minor things. My point was about the BIG things the things they don’t do first. They DIDN’T make the first smartphone, they DIDN’T make the first smartphone with a touchscreen, they DIDN’T make the first PDA, they DIDN’T make the first GUI. See these are all BIG things, you’re the one spazing out about little things multi-touchscreens trying to make them big.

Oh and it’s NOT me claiming the Psion was first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_digital_assistant
The first PDA was released in 1986 by Psion, the Organizer II. Followed by Psion’s Series 3, in 1991, which began to resemble the more familiar PDA style. It also had a full keyboard. [4][5]

That’s reality. And I never said it was the same thing, I said it was the same category of device, which they are. From the same link:
A personal digital assistant (PDA), also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant,[1][2][3] is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager.

See they’re both portable devices for managing personal information. Notice how there’s nothing in that definition about memory size or interface, just the concept of what the device is for. Was the Newton more sophisticated? Yes. Was it first? No. That’s once again the difference between the little things YOU obsess on (memory) and the big thing I’M pointing out (device concept). The first PDA is of course not going to be as sophisticated as one that comes a decade later, but the fact that the one a decade later has a bunch of whizbang features doesn’t make it first in the field.

I understand entirely what an invention is. And I know that you understand it too, which is why you constantly resort to lying about what I said and insults. Because you know the facts don’t back you up. The facts back me up. Apple is not an inventor of devices, they are an inventor of improvements. Which is great, improvements are a wonderful thing. But anybody thinking these markets wouldn’t exist without Apple, that Apple did the creating and everybody else is following is ignoring what came before Apple, who Apple is following.

[ReignOfError]

It’s like the difference between 3 on the tree and 4 on the floor, yes they’re different, but they’re both still stick shift cars.

It's more like the difference between a three-speed manual without synchromesh and an automatic. The difference in usability, and appeal to a wide audience, is massive.

Since you're using an endlessly reductionist definition of what is "new," I'll ask you: Has anyone created anything new in computing or consumer electronics in the last twenty years?

[CharacterCounts]

Siri sounds very cool

When it works, its cool.

Its definitely beta at this time.

[HamiltonJay]

Not sure what principles you are trying to uphold here, but I own and develop for both platforms.

Apple created the market, and the first successful app store, I give Apple far more credit for that, than anything else.

Now I can take my ideas and turn them into apps, and sell them easily and quickly without all the overhead and nonsense I have had to do in the past when I developed and sold software.

I like that Android is open and allows more access to the operating system etc, however for consistency of the user experience and ease of use for the User, Apple wins hands down.

I was a life long person who was anti apple, their products are and still are overpriced, particularly in the destop realm. However, there is a reason the iPhone and iPad are so successful, and they deserve credit for that.

[discostu]

But it’s not a difference in the concept of what is a car.

Actually I’ve been very consistent in my definition of what new is, you guys just don’t like the answer. New is a new device concept, a new gadget, not an improvement on an existing concept, not even a really awesome improvement on an existing concept. It’s really not that difficult an idea. Miniaturizing computers to the point that they become the smartphone is new, that is a new device, a new concept, a new gadget; making the interface with smartphones better by adding multiple touch capabilities to the smartphone is not a new device, it is a better version of an old device. If it has to have a new name (HAS to mind you, not we gave it one anyway) there’s a good chance it’s new. Smartphone, new name, new device. MP3 Player, new name, new device. Smartphone with multitouchscreen, not new name, not new device.

Which is just a long version of what I said that got you guys whiny in the first place. Apple takes stuff that was already out there and adds some features and style and makes them pretty and popular. And there’s nothing wrong with that, the guy that moved car starting from an external hand crank to an internal button/ trigger put in one of the big leaps that allowed 20th Century America to be what it was. An awesome add on to an existing device, but it was still a car after he was done making it awesome.

[Gay State Conservative]

Not sure what principles you are trying to uphold here...

See post #17

[ReignOfError]

If it has to have a new name (HAS to mind you, not we gave it one anyway) there’s a good chance it’s new.

I'm going to call that the Psion clause. It's new if it requires a new name, unless Apple gives it a new name.

Our lives have been radically changed by advances in technology in the last 20 years. I have a simple question: What has been new in that time? Name one company that has created something new, by your definition, in the last twenty years. The smartphone might squeak in, as the IBM Simon was released in 1992. The MP3 player is legitimately new, unless you consider it just a glorified CD Walkman. Other than that, nothing since 1992 qualifies as "new."

[discostu]

It’s not just Apple that like to give existing technology a new name. But certainly in this discussion it’s them that forced the clause.

I already said MP3 players and smartphones were new. Though technically the first digital music player pre-dates analog walkmans that thing was so archaic and had so little market penetration we can pretend it didn’t happen and MP3 players are recent. And I don’t really feel like look up which companies were first in those, we know it wasn’t Apple.

Most companies don’t do anything new. I’ve never had any product I’ve worked on in any company be the first of its kind in the market place. Best yes, first to have certain big features we were surprised nobody else did a surprisingly high number of times, but first in the market no. Most technological advances are incremental, taking something existing and adding a killer tweak. Look at what I was talking about with cars. If you teleported somebody from the 1920s or 30s to today, a very skilled driver even, they probably wouldn’t even know what to do in a modern car. There’s all these new controls and keyless entry and keyless starting, except for the steering wheel and pedals there’s nothing really the same. And forget letting them peek under the hood to try to fix the damn thing. Cars have evolved incredibly in that time frame, heck they’ve evolved incredibly in your pet 20 year time frame. But they aren’t new, because they’re still cars.

Which is really the same for the vast majority of our advances and changes. Yes life has changed dramatically, but largely not because of anything completely new, instead because of old things made dramatically better. This interweb thing you and I are using now has changed almost everything about any form of entertainment you can think of, and it’s older than me, but it’s a lot different now. All the various toys of our life are radically different but also clearly just incremental evolutions of stuff we already had. Even the stuff that’s really new, like smartphones, aren’t really new. Usually the stuff we call new, that’s really new, is only new in so far as it joined two evolutionary paths. Smartphones are the ever shrinking computer merged with phones, both old technologies, but together they make something new.

New is a rare thing in this world.