Samsung Plans To Overhaul Its Smartphone Strategy at the Mid-range Price Point (cnbc.com)

Samsung Electronics plans to overhaul its smartphone strategy at the mid-range price point in order to appeal more to millennials, the company's mobile CEO has told CNBC. From the report: DJ Koh said the South Korean giant is changing its smartphone strategy for its mid-priced Galaxy A series of smartphones amid a slowdown in the handset market. Instead of introducing new technology into the flagship Galaxy S and Note series of devices, Koh said Samsung will look to bring in cutting-edge features to its cheaper models first. The first of these devices will come later this year. "In the past, I brought the new technology and differentiation to the flagship model and then moved to the mid-end. But I have changed my strategy from this year to bring technology and differentiation points starting from the mid-end," Koh told CNBC in an exclusive interview last week. The move comes amid a global smartphone slowdown with Samsung feeling a bit of the pressure. Sales in its mobile division fell 20 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2018 with the company attributing it to lower-than-expected sales of its high-end Galaxy S9 device.

Comments

Features?

[Anne Thwacks]

Never mind the features, just dump the bloat and unlock the boot loader.

Flagship phones are too darn expensive

[bettodavis]

Going over $1000 USD for a smartphone is just insane.

The things aren't even different in any notorious way from last year's version. Same screen size, shape, storage, etc.
And I don't care if the thing can track how many calories I ate just by taking a selfie while eating or tell some wisecracking jokes while doing web searches. Those new "features" aren't worth going $1000 damn dollars.

Re:Flagship phones are too darn expensive

[CrimsonAvenger]

Going over $1000 USD for a smartphone is just insane.

Going anywhere near $1000 USD for a phone is just insane.

For that matter, assuming that a new phone is needed every year is insane.

From the PoV of a phone maker, it's probably safe to assume (right now - in ten years, prolly not) that everyone will be getting a new(er) phone every five or six years. So manufacturing for replacing 15-20% of the phones every year might make sense.

Beyond that, assuming everyone will need a more powerful phone every replacement? Nope. Maybe every third replacement? Possibly.

With exceptions for the fashionistas among us. There'll always be a (small) market for the people who buy a phone, not to do phone things, but to show how hip (fashionable, whatever) they are. Which should keep Apple in business, anyways....

It's too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart phones have are getting into the "good enough" stage where they do everything people want them to do, so customers are feeling feel less and less incentive to spend money on an upgrade. Even worse, the "upgrades" increasingly add little more than stupid novelty features that nobody really wants.

The same thing happened with PCs, laptops and tablets. Smart phones are just the latest ones going down the same path..

Moto G5 Plus cost me just $200

[t4eXanadu]

I bought a Moto G5 Plus for $200 to replace my broken Galaxy phone, and let me tell you: I will never spend more than $400 on a new phone. G5 Plus is a solid midrange phone with good specs and little bloat. Best that Samsung.

Flagships are over priced

[skam240]

I just bought a last years model Motorola Z2 Force ( https://www.motorola.com/us/pr... ) for $120 from Sprint. This is Mororola's flagship from last year.

Now granted the Z series isn't as great as Samsung's or Apple's flagships but it's not a bad phone by a long shot and isn't that far off. The only reason I can see for most people to be paying the current prices for the latest and greatest flagships is tech nerd status which I could care less about. I feel like Samsung is wising up here and realize they can't offer anything new that matters all that much and is reorienting itself for what I feel like is the market to come.

Stop gluing wear items into the phones

[nightfire-unique]

We are not idiots, Samsung. Stop gluing wear items such as batteries into our phones.

Really? Scoff.

[skam240]

Really? Scoff.

How many users are really going to take advantage of the slightly greater speeds those phones provide? I just bought last year's model top tier Motorola for $120 ( see for comments on value of purchase https://mobile.slashdot.org/st... ) . These new thousand dollar phones are offering increased values in exactly the opposite places the average user needs.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a power user when it comes to PCs because I play games but unless you're big on mobile gaming or have some super niche, power hungry use for your phone there's very little extra value in these top tier phones. Four of Five years from now you'll be wanting to buy a new phone whether you buys a sub $300 phone or a $1,000 one.

DUH!

[p51d007]

A properly constructed 835 chip, 4-6 gig of ram, 64 or 128 gig of storage, OLED, 10-12mp camera with OIS is good enough for probably 99% of users. Take off the stupid flashy color garbage along with the glass backs, stick a 4,000mAH battery inside, price it for less than $400 and clean up.

Stop messing with what works

[LaughingRadish]

Bring back IR emitters.
Bring back removable batteries.
Keep SD card slots.
Keep 3.5mm headphone jack.
Get rid of rounded edge displays. They're pointless and any gimmicky effect is thwarted by cases.
Get rid of the notch.
Forget about edgeless displays.
Don't lock bootloaders, or at least provide a means for any owner to unlock the bootloader at no charge.
Keep the physical home button.
Knock it off with Knox.