Who says there’s no money in ripping off the IP of other companies? Bloomberg reported yesterday that Samsung reported record quarterly profits, thanks in no small part to its immensely popular line of Galaxy smartphones.
And for the first time in company history, Samsung’s total number of mobile phone sales surpassed 300 million units.
“The mobile business is generating a huge chunk of profit now,” James Song, a Seoul-based analyst at Daewoo Securities Co., said by telephone. “It may be getting harder for Apple to catch up because they only have a limited number of models.”
Catch up?
If anything, Samsung is the one playing catchup to Apple, copying their hardware and software design with no regard for Apple’s IP and attempting to make easy money off of the hard work of others.
And still, it’s Apple that controls the lion’s share of profits in the mobile space. Even with record mobile handset sales, Samsung still can’t match the mobile revenue Apple rakes in every quarter. And, they’re accomplishing this with a limited product line.
Indeed, many months ago we highlighted how Apple’s success is the result of their streamlined product line, not something they’ve achieved in spite of it.
Going back to Samsung for a minute, it’s also worth noting that their record breaking quarter was also influenced by a one-time gain resulting from the sale of its hard disk drive business to Seagate for $1.38 billion.
via Bloomberg
Sat, Jan 7, 2012
Finance, News