Investors Worried About Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: Are They Overreacting?
The Samsung Galaxy S4 managed to outsell the Apple iPhone 5 as the best-selling smartphone on the market in the US during the month of May
“We believe Samsung on the strength of strong Galaxy S4, S III, and Note II sales surpassed Apple to gain top share of the U.S. smartphone market for the first time since the iPhone 5 launch,†said Michael Walkley, the Canaccord Genuity analyst who conducted the survey, to the New York Times Bits blog.†This is a fairly large uptick since April where Apple was the top-selling smartphone with 39.2% of the market ahead of the 22% that Samsung held. Now investors are worried because it
appears that sales of the phone are slowing. The reason for this are varied according to analysts:
"Sales of high-end handsets are lagging behind expectations, while low- to mid-end handsets are selling briskly worldwide," Kim Young-chan, an analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp., told Reuters. "As the portion of low- to mid-range handsets is expected to increase in Samsung's overall mobile phone business, this has also sparked concerns about thinning margins and lower growth."
J.P. Morgan analyst J.J. Park also told The Wall Street Journal that third-quarter sales for the S4 would likely "disappoint," and that "supply chain checks show monthly orders have been cut 20%-30% to 7 to 8 million units (from 10 million) starting July."
Another analyst, Kim Hyun-yong, at E*trade Securities, told the Journal that since Apple is expected to announce a trade-in program for older phones and a new cheaper iPhone, "overall growth prospects for (Samsung's) smartphone business have dimmed."
Samsung stock price ended up dropping by 6% on Friday wiping out $12 billion in marketing value. Overall sales have slowed but investor fears to appear to be overblown. The Galaxy S4 Mini is not an inferior product. It has a 4.3-inch screen, 1.7Ghz dual-core processor, an 8-MP rear camera, 1.9MP front-camera, 8GB of storage that can be expanded by microSD cards, 3G connectivity and WiFi weighing less than the standard Galaxy S4 at 3.8 ounces rather than 4.6 ounces.
Investors are just overreacting and being too harsh. A more balanced view of the situtions should be taken. Samsung just outstripped Apple, something that seemed unthinkable just a little while ago.