By Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO
South Korean technology giant Samsung announced Thursday that revenues and operating profits for the last quarter of 2014 were down dramatically from the same period the previous year.
Samsung reported approximate preliminary sales of $47.3 billion (52 trillion won) and operating profits of roughly $4.7 billion (5.2 trillion won) for 2014’s fourth quarter. In 2013, the company posted $54.9 billion (59.3 trillion won) in sales and profits of $7.6 billion (8.3 trillion won).
Compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, revenue in the last quarter of 2014 dropped 12 percent and profits fell more than 37 percent.
Samsung had a rough 2014. The company saw profits dip as competition in the smartphone field—Apple on the luxury end and newer Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi on the budget end—squeezed its hold on the market.
Even though the latest numbers are a disappointment compared to 2013, they are still better than the previous quarter. This should be expected, however, because the fourth quarter includes the traditionally strong holiday shopping season.
In the past two years, Samsung has released a plethora of buzzed-about devices with flashy features, like the eye-scrolling capabilities of the Galaxy S4 and an entire line of smartwatches, months before Cupertino unveiled its Apple Watch – which still doesn’t have an official release date.
Other smartphones included keyboards, massive cameras, rugged construction and even a projector.
But the hyped features of the S4 were criticized for not improving the user experience and 2014’s Galaxy S5 didn’t include many of them. Samsung’s first-to-market smartwatches have been called undercooked as well.
Battered by the profit losses during the year, the company appears to be following a strategy of simplifying its product line and pushing harder into the middle and low-range smartphone market.
Still, Samsung remains the most popular smartphone brand in the world and dominates the market of phones running on Google’s Android mobile operating system.
