Samsung wins in the Smartphone market – profits sky high:
With the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy Note and The Samsung Galaxy S2,and Samsung Galaxy S2, it is pretty clear to see that Samsung have had a stellar 2011.
And to ensure that they are not dreaming the stats up, their for the last quarter of 2011 shows exactly that, record profits thrown right in the face of HTC who have just reported a difficult end to 2011.
Smartphone sales were key:
There were some important parts of 2011 that added to the bonanza in profits that Samsung received, but the most important aspect remained that their smartphone products sold well.
According to a report in the FT, Samsung made some Won5.2 trillion between October and December 2011, which equates to a huge 75% increase over the same period last year.
Of course there was the sale of their hard-disk division to disk device specialists Seagate for around $1.5 billion, so this figure is obviously a little off kilter, but still up considerably from last year minus this sale.
What will 2012 hold for smartphone manufacturers?
It has been a pretty mixed year for the smartphone market, HTC have struggled, Samsung have won big, and Apple have ploughed on through even though the Android platform in general has started to really push into sales quite heavily.
Meanwhile Sony and RIM have had tough years as their products have not struck cords, and RIM have just had disaster after disaster hit them.
So what to expect for 2012?
I am pretty sure the iPhone 5 release will be a serious boon for Apple, and HTC’s new smartphones look set to bring a new vigour to the Taiwanese manufacturer, Samsung are sure to bring out the Galaxy S3 that may or may not be 3D enabled so all in all it look set to be quite interesting.
What do you think is going to be 2012’s next Samsung S2, or iPhone 4S?
Let us know your thoughts below.
Anthony Munns