Apple announced that it sold 10 million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units over its first weekend of availability. While this is obviously good news for Apple, it seems to translate to bad news for Samsung. The South Korean tech giant announced that its shares have fallen to their lowest level since 2012, reported Bloomberg.
In addition to the 2.3 percent market share it lost, Samsung also reduced its profit estimate to 4.7 trillion won, down from the original 5.7 trillion won forecast (1 trillion won = $950,498,000). Samsung acknowledged that its positions in China and India are weakened by rivals, such as Xiaomi and Meizu, both of which offer cheaper, but still full-featured, handsets. Specifically in China, Samsung’s situation won’t be pretty over the next three years, as Chinese authorities have mandated the three state-owned wireless carriers to cut promotional and subsidy spending by a combined $6.5 billion.
Samsung also acknowledged that the strong iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales caught the company off-guard. Samsung was prompted to announce that the Galaxy Note 4 will be released ahead of schedule in South Korea.
“The positive reaction from consumers to those two Apple devices prompted us to launch the Note 4 earlier than previously scheduled,” said a Samsung representative to The Korea Times. “Samsung will be aggressive in promoting the Note 4 and it’s true that we are being challenged and pressured amid a difficult situation.”
According to Samsung’s internal sales target, the company expects to ship 15 million Galaxy Note 4 units during the handset’s first month of availability. This is quite a lofty goal, seeing how it took the Galaxy Note 3 two months to ship 10 million units. What should help things along is the Galaxy Note 4’s price tag in South Korea, which, at 957,000 won ($920) off-contract, represents the lowest price in the Galaxy Note series.
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