Post by manjacat on Feb 27, 2015 16:19:25 GMT 8
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artikel asal panjang gile. aku potong sket dan letak the interesting part.
Missed opportunity
The success of Samsung’s Mobile in the US began a rift with the Korean headquarters. Sources say the more successful Samsung was in the US, the more complicated the relationship with headquarters got. Instead of getting credit, the US team felt they were being chastised for doing their jobs well. (Samsung declined to comment on this story.)
It got so bad, a source told us, that Samsung flew a plane full of executives to the mobile division’s office in Dallas for an unannounced audit that lasted three weeks in 2012. The Dallas-based employees had to go through all materials they used to sell and market Samsung’s mobile products. They were accused of falsifying sales, bribing the media, and a bunch of other damaging actions that hurt morale in the office. The same US-based office that helped turn Samsung into a brand as recognizable as Apple was suddenly being punished for its work.
After three weeks, the Korean auditors found nothing wrong with the way the US office had been operating and went home. But the damage had been done, and the perception remained at the Korean headquarters that despite its success, the US team was up to no good.
In fact, during one meeting with the global teams at Samsung’s headquarters in Korea, executives made the US team stand up in front of several hundred of their peers in an auditorium. The executives told the employees to clap for the US team as encouragement since they were the only group failing the company, even though it was clear to everyone the opposite was true.
That all but killed any hope of translating what the US team pulled off to other regions. They were able to continue in North America, but Samsung’s global messaging remained disjointed.
It all culminated in 2013 when Samsung introduced the Galaxy S4 at an over-the-top event at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Instead of the traditional product announcement, Samsung put on a Broadway-style musical that incorporated features of the new phone.
It was weird, one of those things you had to see to believe. And a lot of people criticized Samsung for putting on a show that seemed to objectify women. CNET’s Molly Wood called the event “tone-deaf and shockingly sexist.”
Aside from the awkward unveiling, the Galaxy S4 also launched to mostly negative reviews. Samsung packed a ton of features into the phone like touch-free controls, eye tracking, and a whole suite of camera modes that were either unnecessary or didn’t work as advertised. Still, the phone was Samsung’s most successful ever, and 2013 was another very good year for the company.
But 2014 was going to be a wakeup call.
The rough year
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last year, Samsung boasted that it had sold over 100 million units from its Galaxy S line over the last four years, a sales figure for a flagship series that only Apple could beat.
Then it unveiled the Galaxy S5, a phone that toned down a lot of the superfluous features of the Galaxy S4 while including some useful new stuff like an improved camera and water-resistant body. Like previous Galaxy S phones, the S5 had a plastic body and sold for about $650 unlocked. Based on the success of the Galaxy S4, the company had no reason to believe it had a dud on its hands.
It was wrong.
There are a lot of factors for Samsung’s major slip in 2014, but the biggest culprit appears to be Chinese smartphone manufacturers. Chinese companies like the startups OnePlus and Xiaomi appeared to have perfected the magic formula for making beautiful, high-quality smartphones that cost at least half as much as the iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy S series.
Xiaomi was the biggest success story of the year. By some estimates, it was the top smartphone vendor in China, the next big market where millions of people are making the transition to smartphones. Xiaomi’s phones are made out of premium materials like metal, so they look better than Samsung’s phones. They also have similar specs like fast processors, sharp screens, and high-quality cameras.
Xiaomi’s rise meant Samsung’s decline in China. Since Xiaomi phones are also Android phones, there was very little Samsung’s pricier models could do that Xiaomi’s phones couldn’t do. Plus, Xiaomi is a marketing success story. Fans snap up the devices with the same fervor Apple fans buy new iPhone models in Western countries. And most of Xiaomi’s marketing is done through social media or word of mouth, so it doesn’t have to rely on the multimillion dollar ad campaigns Samsung uses.
But Xiaomi is just one factor. A lot of Samsung’s success came because it was able to get a head start and distribute its phones on a broader scale before the rest of the non-iPhone competition could, according to tech analyst Ben Thompson, the author of the Stratechery blog.
For example, the iPhone was only available on about a third as many carriers as Samsung phones were. In the US, Samsung phones were one of your best options unless you were an AT&T customer and had access to the iPhone.
It was the same story on China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world with over 700 million subscribers. Apple finally brought the iPhone to China Mobile early last year. Ever since, China has been one of Apple’s biggest growth areas for the iPhone business. Everyone else seemed to be choosing Xiaomi, Lenovo, or another cheaper rival to Samsung.
“I think it’s always dangerous when you don’t know why you’ve won,” Thompson said in an interview. “One of the reasons Samsung succeeded is they pivoted in ways Nokia and others didn’t. They were able to leverage everything they already had, but weren’t able to sustain it because there wasn’t anything special about their phones. Samsung got crushed on the high end by Apple and the low end by Xiaomi in China.”
Thompson continued, “At the end of the day, there’s nothing to differentiate a Samsung phone, so they’ll have to compete on price.”
However, that doesn’t seem to be Samsung’s plan.
The new strategy
On March 1, Samsung will unveil two new versions of its next flagship phone, the Galaxy S6. According to sources familiar with Samsung’s plans, one version will have a metal body, a departure from the plasticky phones the company has made in the past. The second version will have a curved screen, similar to the Galaxy Note Edge that launched last fall.
But both models are still going to priced as premium products. According to one leak, the “Edge” version of the Galaxy S6 could cost over $1,000 without a contract, at least three times the cost of a Xiaomi phone.
Unless Samsung has a special trick up its sleeve on the software side, it’s unlikely that its new phones will be enough to justify the extra cost over similar Android devices. And if that happens, Samsung is almost certainly up for another messy year. The glow surrounding Samsung’s smartphone business has almost certainly faded for good. Time to find something new.
However, that doesn’t mean the company is hosed. Samsung is a massive organization that makes everything from dishwashers to air purifiers. It has the scale and manufacturing power to harness the next big thing after smartphones, even if that next big thing doesn’t come from it’s own R&D labs.
Plus, its chip business is already very profitable, and is due to get a nice boost thanks to a reported agreement with Samsung to make processors for the next iPhone due to launch later this year.
One key area Samsung is focusing on in the near term is the “internet of things” (IoT) trend, which means connecting everyday objects like light switches and toasters to the internet for a deeper level of control. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January of this year, Samsung announced that every product it makes will connect to the internet within a few years. In theory, this will build a valuable ecosystem connecting everything in your home and create a whole new category of Samsung customers.
But in the meantime, Samsung’s core mobile business is struggling.
artikel asal panjang gile. aku potong sket dan letak the interesting part.
Missed opportunity
The success of Samsung’s Mobile in the US began a rift with the Korean headquarters. Sources say the more successful Samsung was in the US, the more complicated the relationship with headquarters got. Instead of getting credit, the US team felt they were being chastised for doing their jobs well. (Samsung declined to comment on this story.)
It got so bad, a source told us, that Samsung flew a plane full of executives to the mobile division’s office in Dallas for an unannounced audit that lasted three weeks in 2012. The Dallas-based employees had to go through all materials they used to sell and market Samsung’s mobile products. They were accused of falsifying sales, bribing the media, and a bunch of other damaging actions that hurt morale in the office. The same US-based office that helped turn Samsung into a brand as recognizable as Apple was suddenly being punished for its work.
After three weeks, the Korean auditors found nothing wrong with the way the US office had been operating and went home. But the damage had been done, and the perception remained at the Korean headquarters that despite its success, the US team was up to no good.
In fact, during one meeting with the global teams at Samsung’s headquarters in Korea, executives made the US team stand up in front of several hundred of their peers in an auditorium. The executives told the employees to clap for the US team as encouragement since they were the only group failing the company, even though it was clear to everyone the opposite was true.
That all but killed any hope of translating what the US team pulled off to other regions. They were able to continue in North America, but Samsung’s global messaging remained disjointed.
It all culminated in 2013 when Samsung introduced the Galaxy S4 at an over-the-top event at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Instead of the traditional product announcement, Samsung put on a Broadway-style musical that incorporated features of the new phone.
It was weird, one of those things you had to see to believe. And a lot of people criticized Samsung for putting on a show that seemed to objectify women. CNET’s Molly Wood called the event “tone-deaf and shockingly sexist.”
Aside from the awkward unveiling, the Galaxy S4 also launched to mostly negative reviews. Samsung packed a ton of features into the phone like touch-free controls, eye tracking, and a whole suite of camera modes that were either unnecessary or didn’t work as advertised. Still, the phone was Samsung’s most successful ever, and 2013 was another very good year for the company.
But 2014 was going to be a wakeup call.
The rough year
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last year, Samsung boasted that it had sold over 100 million units from its Galaxy S line over the last four years, a sales figure for a flagship series that only Apple could beat.
Then it unveiled the Galaxy S5, a phone that toned down a lot of the superfluous features of the Galaxy S4 while including some useful new stuff like an improved camera and water-resistant body. Like previous Galaxy S phones, the S5 had a plastic body and sold for about $650 unlocked. Based on the success of the Galaxy S4, the company had no reason to believe it had a dud on its hands.
It was wrong.
There are a lot of factors for Samsung’s major slip in 2014, but the biggest culprit appears to be Chinese smartphone manufacturers. Chinese companies like the startups OnePlus and Xiaomi appeared to have perfected the magic formula for making beautiful, high-quality smartphones that cost at least half as much as the iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy S series.
Xiaomi was the biggest success story of the year. By some estimates, it was the top smartphone vendor in China, the next big market where millions of people are making the transition to smartphones. Xiaomi’s phones are made out of premium materials like metal, so they look better than Samsung’s phones. They also have similar specs like fast processors, sharp screens, and high-quality cameras.
Xiaomi’s rise meant Samsung’s decline in China. Since Xiaomi phones are also Android phones, there was very little Samsung’s pricier models could do that Xiaomi’s phones couldn’t do. Plus, Xiaomi is a marketing success story. Fans snap up the devices with the same fervor Apple fans buy new iPhone models in Western countries. And most of Xiaomi’s marketing is done through social media or word of mouth, so it doesn’t have to rely on the multimillion dollar ad campaigns Samsung uses.
But Xiaomi is just one factor. A lot of Samsung’s success came because it was able to get a head start and distribute its phones on a broader scale before the rest of the non-iPhone competition could, according to tech analyst Ben Thompson, the author of the Stratechery blog.
For example, the iPhone was only available on about a third as many carriers as Samsung phones were. In the US, Samsung phones were one of your best options unless you were an AT&T customer and had access to the iPhone.
It was the same story on China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world with over 700 million subscribers. Apple finally brought the iPhone to China Mobile early last year. Ever since, China has been one of Apple’s biggest growth areas for the iPhone business. Everyone else seemed to be choosing Xiaomi, Lenovo, or another cheaper rival to Samsung.
“I think it’s always dangerous when you don’t know why you’ve won,” Thompson said in an interview. “One of the reasons Samsung succeeded is they pivoted in ways Nokia and others didn’t. They were able to leverage everything they already had, but weren’t able to sustain it because there wasn’t anything special about their phones. Samsung got crushed on the high end by Apple and the low end by Xiaomi in China.”
Thompson continued, “At the end of the day, there’s nothing to differentiate a Samsung phone, so they’ll have to compete on price.”
However, that doesn’t seem to be Samsung’s plan.
The new strategy
On March 1, Samsung will unveil two new versions of its next flagship phone, the Galaxy S6. According to sources familiar with Samsung’s plans, one version will have a metal body, a departure from the plasticky phones the company has made in the past. The second version will have a curved screen, similar to the Galaxy Note Edge that launched last fall.
But both models are still going to priced as premium products. According to one leak, the “Edge” version of the Galaxy S6 could cost over $1,000 without a contract, at least three times the cost of a Xiaomi phone.
Unless Samsung has a special trick up its sleeve on the software side, it’s unlikely that its new phones will be enough to justify the extra cost over similar Android devices. And if that happens, Samsung is almost certainly up for another messy year. The glow surrounding Samsung’s smartphone business has almost certainly faded for good. Time to find something new.
However, that doesn’t mean the company is hosed. Samsung is a massive organization that makes everything from dishwashers to air purifiers. It has the scale and manufacturing power to harness the next big thing after smartphones, even if that next big thing doesn’t come from it’s own R&D labs.
Plus, its chip business is already very profitable, and is due to get a nice boost thanks to a reported agreement with Samsung to make processors for the next iPhone due to launch later this year.
One key area Samsung is focusing on in the near term is the “internet of things” (IoT) trend, which means connecting everyday objects like light switches and toasters to the internet for a deeper level of control. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January of this year, Samsung announced that every product it makes will connect to the internet within a few years. In theory, this will build a valuable ecosystem connecting everything in your home and create a whole new category of Samsung customers.
But in the meantime, Samsung’s core mobile business is struggling.
