The Samsung 'Smartphone' Guessing Game ...
Psylent,
<< "Research firm IDC posted a report that said in the first quarter, Samsung shipped 42.2 million smartphones while Apple shipped 35.1 million. That gave Samsung 29.1 percent of the market and Apple 24.2 percent." ... Not that it really matters, but these estimates are wrong for Samsung. Samsung said that handsets shipments were down about 10% sequentially, and that smartphones accounted for the same percentage. Apple, on the other hand, only declined 5% or so sequentially. So either Samsung beat Apple in smartphones in both the Dec and March quarters, or in neither. >>
Did you listen to the Samsung earnings CC or its replay? It can be a difficult listen and I had to repeat what was stated in several sections of it, and I still had difficulty interpreting what was stated in at least one case. In re the CC Peter Svensson of AP reported ...
When it reported first-quarter results Friday morning, Samsung said only that overall phone shipments (including "dumb" phones) were down more than 10 percent from the fourth quarter, and that smartphone sales were about the same percentage of the company's overall sales as they have been before.
Robert M. Yi of Samsung actually said:
In handsets the "market" saw higher than 10% [unit shipment] decline QoQ and Samsung saw low single digit decline.
Perhaps I missed something else Peter thought he heard in my listens to the presentations and Q&A but I heard neither Samsung's Yi or Hyunjoon Kim (Mobile Com) state that "smartphone sales were about the same percentage of the company's overall sales as they have been before" and to the contrary although they have stated that in some prior quarters but in this particular quarter they made contrary statements.
In the case of "the market" and for the Samsung Mobile share of that market while total handset shipments decreased Samsung's total handsets decreased less, and both Yi and Hyunjoon Kim stated in several ways that Samsung smartphone shipments increased ("Smartphone shipments increased across all regions, especially in the emerging markets"). That's reflected in Samsung's presentation slide 6 for IM (formerly Telecoms until December's restructuring) ...
1Q Results for IM [Segment of SEC where IM now = IT & Mobile communications]
[Handset]
• Market: decreased low teens % QoQ amid low seasonal demand
--> Demand for smartphones and feature phones decreased QoQ due to demand slowdown in developed markets
• Samsung: Earnings increased significantly QoQ led by product mix improvement - Strong smartphone sales
--> Smartphone: Shipments increased across all regions, especially in the emerging markets
· Steady sales of the existing models (Galaxy S?, Ace, Y, etc.) and sales expansion of high-end strategic models (Galaxy Note, LTE, etc.)
- ASP increased QoQ led by product mix improvement
tinyurl.com 
After holding off till after Samsung reported, IDC estimated Samsung total handsets down 3% QoQ from 96.3m in Q4'11 to 93.8 million in Q1'12 but they estimated Samsung smartphones up 18% from 36 million in Q4'11 to 42.2 million in Q2. Based on what I heard they accurately saw smartphones up QoQ although their estimated sell-in for Samsung is really more of a WA Guestimate than an estimate since while other cellphone manufacturers disclose unit shipments of their products, Samsung stopped doing so a year ago. The majority of cellphone manufacturers that do disclose sell-in do not, however, breakout smartphone from other handsets sold-in. Nokia and Apple are major exceptions in this regard. RIM is getting vaguer about unit volumes and HTC no longer reports them.
In addition in Samsung's earnings presentation in slide 1 (Segment Sales and Operating Profit): Samsung total Q1 Revenue reported by IM was 23.22 Trillion Won (+70% YoY). Of that, "Mobile" contributed 18.90 Trillion Won [$16.6 Billion USD] up 86% YoY and up 10% sequentially QoQ from 17.18 Trillion Won [$14.8 Trillion USD] in Q4 2011. Some of the increase was due to appreciation of the Won but despite overall decreased device shipments improved product mix (more smart devices as opposed to feature phones and entry level models) with improved ASPs constituted the rest. While in Q4 smart device shipments in developed markets accounted for a ~30% QoQ increase in unit shipments in Q1 while developed markets lagged,
Admittedly since Samsung hasn't provided unit shipment data for over a year, and when they did total handset sell-in included tablet MIDs as well as smartphones, their actual smartphone shipments are anybody's guess. They do include some questionable items as smartphones. Samsung markets Bada with its feature phone OS (Nucleos RTOS from Mentor Graphics) as a smartphone and calls the Bada OS a smartphone OS, some agencies refer to it as a smarter feature phone while others call it a smartphone. One can also legitimately question whether or not the very successful Note is a smartphone or a tablet MID. In addition IM/Mobile now includes media players including their 'connected ' cellular enabled players with touch screen
Phil Goldstein of Fierce Wireless opined that the root cause of the Samsung Guessing Game was attributable to something Samsung said in Q3 2011 ...
In smartphone shipments, analysts firms diverged on how Samsung did [in Q1 2012]. According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung had 44.5 million smartphone shipments in the quarter, up from 12.6 million smartphone shipments in the year-ago quarter, and easily besting Apple's 35.1 million iPhone shipments and Nokia's 11.9 million smartphone shipments. However, IHS said that Apple actually beat Samsung, and that Samsung only had 32 million smartphone shipments. This discrepancy appears to stem from something Samsung said during the release of results in the third quarter of 2011, according to Ovum analyst Jan Dawson. At the time, Samsung said smartphone sales were up more than 40 percent quarter-over-quarter and 300 percent year-over-year. The issue is whether Samsung's third-quarter smartphone shipments were actually 400 percent or 300 percent. The difference was then extrapolated for the fourth quarter. "Basically, all the analysts out there have taken one of these two routes, and are either moving forward on a solid foundation or compounding the original error every quarter, hence the increasing discrepancy," Dawson wrote in a Google+ post. "Strategy Analytics is assuming the 400% number is correct, and arrives at a 44.5 million number for Q1 2012, while iSuppli and others are assuming the 300% is correct, and arrive at a 32 million number for Q1."
Whether Samsung passed Apple in smartphones again in Q4 or didn't, they had a stellar quarter and their mobile device operating margins were the highest they have recorded since H1 2004. IM had an op margin of 18.4%. Undoubtedly mobile device op margin was higher than that because the IT segment of IM now also includes not just telecom infrastructure but also mid/high end PCs and mid/high end multifunction printers as a result of the recent restructure.
>> Does Apple Or Samsung Wear The Crown For World's Top Smartphone Maker?
Peter Svensson
AP (New York)
04/27/2012
huffingtonpost.com
Smartphones are the hottest gadgets in the world. But who's the biggest smartphone maker? We don't really know.
Samsung, Apple's chief competitor, gives only vague indications of how many it makes, which means industry watchers come up with widely diverging estimates. Apple Inc. reports its iPhone sales down to the thousands. In the January to March period, it shipped 35,064,000. South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. may have sold 32 million, 37.5 million or 44.5 million, depending which analyst you believe. The company itself refuses to say.
What's at stake, of course, are bragging rights. More accurate sales figures from Samsung would also be useful to competitors and to partners like wireless carriers and retailers.
When it reported first-quarter results Friday morning, Samsung said only that overall phone shipments (including "dumb" phones) were down more than 10 percent from the fourth quarter, and that smartphone sales were about the same percentage of the company's overall sales as they have been before.
The problem is that Samsung hasn't reported any hard sales figures in a long time, so analysts are applying these vague hints to their own estimates, which in turn are based on vague hints from previous quarters.
There's even a debate about what Samsung's few guideposts really mean. Jan Dawson, an analyst at Ovum, says the analyst community is split over the interpretation of Samsung's reported "300 percent" increase in smartphone sales in the third quarter of 2011, over the third quarter of 2010. A 300 percent increase means a quadrupling, but did Samsung really mean that? Or did sales triple, and they made the common mistake of calling that a "300 percent increase?"
The two schools of thought account for some of the widely diverging estimates, Dawson believes. Analysts and reporters haven't been able to get Samsung to clarify the issue. ###
Cheers,
- Eric - |
