Samsung Beat Apple In Smartphone Shipments, Profit Surges To 2-Year High (thehindu.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Earlier reports speculated this to be true, but now it's official: Samsung has beat Apple in smartphone shipments to lift the company to its most profitable quarter in over two years. The Hindu reports: "Riding on the strong sales of its Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones, Samsung Electronics on Thursday declared 8.14 trillion won ($7billion) year on-year operating profit -- 18 percent in the second quarter results. Touted as bad news for Apple that saw a 15 percent decline in iPhone sales in its second quarter results announced this week, Samsung saw substantial earnings improvement led by sales of its flagship products such as Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. A streamlined mid-to low-end smartphone lineup also contributed to improved profitability for the company. According to Samsung, it shipped about 90 million handsets in the April-June period with smartphones making up more than 80 per cent of the total, the Korea Herald reported. Samsung's second-quarter smartphone shipments are estimated at about 72 million units, almost doubling Apple's iPhone shipments of 40.4 million units during the same period."

Comments

Samsung has earned it

[npslider]

I am very impressed with my S7 Edge. It took me a little time to adjust to the curved screen, but all in all I prefer it to my iPhone 6. If Samsung continues to move forward, and Apple does not step up its game, this could be the the new normal.

Re:Samsung has earned it

[jimngo]

Well, Apple has Beats. So there.

Re:Samsung has earned it

[msauve]

You're holding it wrong.

Go Samsung!

[markdavis]

But, But, But.... according to this earlier today: https://apple.slashdot.org/sto...

the "iphone" is the most popular product of all time!!!! It is the best thing since sliced bread! It solved all the world's problems! It changed the world! Nothing else existed before it and everything about it was brand new and innovative! The article reads like distorted wet-dream fanclub marketing propaganda, completely ignoring reality and everything that lead up to it and happened after.

Anyway, go Samsung! Nice to have quality choices in a far less walled-in environment.

Re:Go Samsung!

[LynnwoodRooster]

Huh... Stuck forever? My Galaxy Note 5 (Verizon) gets regular updates. It's running Android 6.0.1 which was released about 21 days ago. And it updated about 14 days ago. So I guess I was, technically, stuck on an old version for about 7 days...

Re:Pogolobotog monkeys win the slig?!

[Penguinisto]

Parent post and TFA made equal amount of sense.

After all, there is a vast difference between a shipment (sending the product to a warehouse or store) and a sale (customer actually purchasing the product).

It's nice that Samsung shipped more phones than Apple, but how many of them are sitting in a stuffed channel, as opposed to sitting in customer hands as a sold item?

Apple only reports actual sales, so until/unless Samsung reports actual sales, TFA means absolutely nothing at all, and looks awfully the same as Microsoft's old Xbox channel-stuffing antics.

Re:Margins

[Uberbah]

Businesses preferred the much less expensive Windows boxes. So windows became the standard.

How is that relevant to iOS vs Android, when a Samsung device costs just as much as an iPhone?

I think Apple makes about 60% of their revenue, and 80% of their profits from iPhones. If iPhone sales slip, it might be 1997 all over again.

Which also means that Apple has more room to engage in a price war, if it comes down to that.

2 year high?

[Plumpaquatsch]

So let's compare to the same quarter 2 years ago: Apple sold 35.2 million iPhones in (calender) quarter 2 of 2014, while Samsung sold 78 million. So comparing those two quarters two years apart, Apple sold 14.7% more iPhones, while Samsung's smartphone sales are down by 7.7%.

So clearly in 2016 Samsung is the winner because they had a terrible year in 2015, while Apple is TEH L00zer because they had an incredible 2015.