That's a tough spin on positive news. Just because the analysts blew their estimates doesn't mean Samsung had a bad quarter. Here is the key quote:
"Sales of 47 trillion won ($41 billion) trailed the 49.8 trillion-won average of 35 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg, overshadowing operating profit that rose to a record."
Consider the source: people reading Bloomberg probably do want to know what's going on with the share price moreso then a general or tech news source reader where the focus might remain on the raw numbers.
It's analysts jobs to know the competition and the holistic market, so perhaps their numbers were off somewhere else. You don't know what desperate measures competition might take in order to try to fend off or slow down someone you see who's going to become a strong competitor.
Well, if you are investing on analyst expectations, and then the stock doesnt meet those expectations, then of course a price correction is necessary. The market is efficient and so is sensitive to information changes.
Yes, but if the estimates were too conservative, then the adjustments should be upward, not downward. Adjusting unexpected profits upwards is clearly just a punishment.
Analyst estimates were bullish, Samsung's later estimates were less than that. Since its not in Samsung's interest to be less bullish than necessary, investors took that as new reliable information and reacted to it by adjusting their target price for the stock downwards. Nothing weird about it.
If Samsung was the only source of information, then you would be correctly. But they aren't, and even if they were, investors would make "bets" that were either more optimistic or pessimistic than what later information supported.
They are efficient with respect to imperfect information and an imperfect actor (humans with emotions), which means they will be even more volatile as new information is uncovered or new emotions arise.
Bloomberg headline writers love to try and assign causality to the meanderings of stock prices. Daniel Kahneman's recent book Thinking, Fast And Slow recounts a story from Nassim Taleb's book The Black Swan that encapsulates the tendency to find causality:
> A story in Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan illustrates this automatic search for causality. He reports that bond prices initially rose on the day of Saddam Hussein’s capture in his hiding place in Iraq. Investors were apparently seeking safer assets that morning, and the Bloomberg News service flashed this headline: U.S. TREASURIES RISE; HUSSEIN CAPTURE MAY NOT CURB TERRORISM. Half an hour later, bond prices fell back and the revised headline read: U.S. TREASURIES FALL; HUSSEIN CAPTURE BOOSTS ALLURE OF RISKY ASSETS. Obviously, Hussein’s capture was the major event of the day, and because of the way the automatic search for causes shapes our thinking, that event was destined to be the explanation of whatever happened in the market on that day. The two headlines look superficially like explanations of what happened in the market, but a statement that can explain two contradictory outcomes explains nothing at all. In fact, all the headlines do is satisfy our need for coherence: a large event is supposed to have consequences, and consequences need causes to explain them.
Actual announcement: "Samsung Electronics has said that it expects its profits to surge 79% in the second quarter as sales of its smartphones continue to grow."
You ignore the three phones in the stock / normal configuration that looks nothing like iOS (showing widgets, etc), focus on the one that happens to be showing the app drawer which is more similar just so you can troll with a comment about copying. It's getting old.
"focus on the one that happens to be showing the app drawer"
(1) Hard not to focus on the one being shoved at the camera.
(2) Display models held by display models don't just "happen" to be configured a certain way. Samsung has frequently marketed their stuff with the app drawer although lawsuits have mitigated that lately.*
Given the lack of differentiation with Samsung products compared to other Android vendors your suggestion that this is all a big coincidence is laughable.
iOS's launcher looks pretty much exactly like Windows 3.1's program manager. It's almost like grids are a natural way to arrange square icons, or something.
It's about two subtle design cue's: swipable page with 4*4 icons - spacing - 4 fixed icons. Call icon with white on similar hue of green in bottom left.
Should my car manufacturer switch to square steering-wheels for better differentiation?
When an UI works well then by all means copy it. Apple should not be allowed to hold back an entire industry just because they happened to be the first to come up with a sensible icon-layout for touchscreen-devices.
Even though a late entrant, by hook or crook Sammy has become top seller of smart phones along with Apple. It is almost pushing Nokia,RIM and others out of market. This is definitely appreciable.
I don't think it is appreciable, since Samsung is one of the biggest copycat companies ever. I was shopping for a washing machine recently, and it struck me how blatantly Samsung copies features from Miele. You can say what you want about Nokia and RIM, but they certainly have been innovative in the past. Samsung, not at all.
What blows my mind is how so many geeks have flocked to Samsung's side in the patent debacle of late. Samsung is one of the most "evil" corporations out there. They are one of the most shameless abusers of power in South Korea and are well known to suppress competition, free speech, and political dissent through their media influence.
Samsung's success (and their past means of achieving it) is nothing to be proud of.
What the hell does the patent issue have to do with free speech or political dissent? If you're against the patents on principle - like many are - it makes perfect sense to side with the one being targeted by them, regardless of what you think of them.
To paraphrase Beatrice Hall: "I disapprove of what you do, but I will defend to the death your right to be free from patent abusers".
Not only are they copycats in virtually all their product lines (from tvs to washing machines), they are part of other unsavory activities such as price fixing and obstructing gov investigations.
I am personally trying to avoid their products, they don't deserve any kind of admiration whatsoever.
I completely agree that it is a copycat, that's why I mentioned 'hook or crook'. But how many copy cats are making it to top in any sector. Some thing more is there with it technology wise or marketing wise. Would like to hear Any other thoughts.
They are a copycat but one with brilliant industrial design capabilities (not just a nice product but efficient to assemble), a ruthless competitive streak, most complete supply chain of any CE company (screens, semi conductors and god knows what else). They buy their way into retail with high dealer margins and slightly different models for each retailer/carrier so that the dealers/carriers push them until they are dominant.
They also form part of the supply chain for most of their competitors so they can gain an information advantage.
In the TV market I think where they really took the lead in product development was with the ability to redesign the panel packaging to use it as structure for the TV and then to design for thinner a thinner bezels.
So they're successful because they're holistically thinking about the entire supply chain, rather than just think that a cool product will sell itself?
How is this any different than software? Certainly there are many cases where a startup or company tries to make a product and us geeks say "It's stupid to pay for that I can redo it in a weekend and put it on Github" and we fawn over the OSS project and grill the original company.
And certainly there are other cases where OSS blazes the trail. But copycat software gets a hall pass when it you get to download it for free? Or is your post just a different iteration on the iOS/Android fanboy-ism?
"Samsung Shares Fall After Quarterly Sales Miss Estimates"