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SAMSUNG LAUNCHED THE latest version of its oversized Galaxy Note smartphone earlier than expected Wednesday after rival Apple reported record sales of its latest iPhone 6.
Samsung said the Galaxy Note 4 – initially scheduled for launch in October – would hit stores in South Korea and China this week before being sold in 140 nations by the end of next month.
It would be the first time a flagship Samsung product has gone on sale in China ahead of other markets, reflecting the firm’s desire to battle growing competition from cheaper Chinese-made rivals.
The decision to bring forward the launch also came after rival Apple reported a record opening weekend for its latest range of iPhones, including the iPhone 6 Plus – the firm’s first foray into the big-screen market.
Sales topped 10 million in just three days following Friday’s launch in the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico and Singapore.
The new iPhone is not yet available in China.
Samsung initially pioneered the market for the “phablet” devices – sized between a smartphone and a tablet computer – when it introduced its Galaxy Note series in 2011.
Along with the Galaxy S smartphones, they helped the South Korean giant dethrone Apple as the world’s top smartphone maker.
Samsung has been poking Apple in ads portraying the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus as inspired by the Note’s size.
For the past three years, the arch-rivals have been locked in a battle of litigative attrition in close to a dozen countries, with each accusing the other of infringing various patents related to their smartphones and tablets.
But neither has managed to deliver a knock-out blow with a number of rulings going different ways. Last month the companies agreed to drop all patent disputes outside the United States.
Samsung has a diverse product line ranging from memory chips to home appliances, but more than half its profits are generated by mobile devices.
Saturated smartphone market
The mobile market has become increasingly saturated, while competition has intensified from cheaper Chinese handset makers such as Huawei and Lenovo.
In July, Samsung reported a 20% drop in net profit for the second quarter, and its shares are sitting at a two-year low.
Its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5, reportedly suffered sluggish sales after tepid reviews greeted its April launch.
“We are temporarily going through a difficult business situation,” Lee Don-Joo, head of sales and marketing for Samsung’s mobile unit, told reporters at Wednesday’s launch in Seoul
“But…we hope that we would be able to recover soon based on our fundamental capability for technical innovation,” Lee said.
Sales of Galaxy Note 3 topped 10 million in two months after its launch in 2013, and Lee predicted the Note 4 would outperform that.
The 5.7-inch Note 4 – priced at 957,000 won (€716) – comes with S-pen stylus allowing users to draw and write on the screen and perform various tasks simultaneously.
The presence of a stylus pen – not offered by iPhone 6 – offers a “unique input methodology,” said Lee Young-Hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile unit.
There is a general consensus that smartphone evolution has hit a barrier that will only allow incremental improvements on existing design and technology, rather than market-changing reinvention.
According to International Data, a record-high 295.3 million smartphones were shipped worldwide in the second quarter.
Samsung remained the world’s top vendor, moving 74 million handsets, but saw its overall market share slip seven percentage points to 25.2%, while China’s Huawei nearly doubled its shipments from the same quarter a year ago.
Samsung also announced Wednesday it plans an October launch for a new version of its Galaxy Gear smartwatch, as well as a virtual reality headset, Gear VR.
The firm has ramped up efforts to promote Internet-enabled wearable devices in a move towards the market for the Internet of Things, in which household appliances and electronic devices are connected through the network.
Apple unveiled its “Apple Watch” earlier this month, with plans to get it into stores early next year.
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Climate change can’t be dismissed much longer, 17 Celsius isn’t normal in Ireland at halloween, same as the last couple of years.
@Freda Peeple: it rains most Halloween nights. Remember global warming, ozone layer.
@Shane O Mac: Global warming is happening. Depletion of the ozone layer was addressed through science-based action.
@Brendan O’Brien: gobla warming word is not talked about, talk to India 1st, going electric cars wont save it
@Shane O Mac: How do we get in touch with India? Will I say Shane referred me?
@Freda Peeple: I’m sure you send them an email stating climate change. It’s just another buzz word.
@jak: Do you have that comment saved on your phone?!?! About the 100th time I’ve seen it in different articles.comments…… Zzzzzzzz!!!!
@Freda Peeple: its great init,,,
@jak: Ok Jak, I’ll entertain your peanut brain for a second, all that waffle you just posted were estimations made at a particular time by individuals who are probably dead now. what we are experiencing in real time is what matters, weather extremes and seasons all over the shop, food production, famine; disease, displacement of people all going on NOW, so whatever was presumed in the past doesn’t matter anymore.
I saw some clown on FB saying the Spanish flood was “engineered” ffs…and it got more thumbs up than the abuse it deserved. We are doomed as a species because idiots think like this.
@jak: fool
@jak: do you copy all your posts from Russian memes?
@Freda Peeple: I have no issue with accepting the climate is changing and not for the better, what I don’t get is that if it’s so threatening to our existence (which it probably is) why is everything we have to do so expensive/unaffordable, why aren’t all these solutions massively subsidized. During covid crisis people were payed to stay at home, didn’t have to pay for the vaccines. During climate crisis people are being fleeced for electric car purchase, house upgrades, green taxes which mainly punish lower earners. And all of this while luxurious lifestyles by the the elite create tonnes of CO2, but that’s fine because greening is not applicable to the elite
@Shane O Mac: Reversing depletion of Ozone layer was an fairly easy act. Climate change otoh is much more devastating and longer lasting even if we stop all green house gases today.
We live in Spain. The floods came close but we are luckily a few km south. A friend from Newry arrived at our house to collect his golf clubs after driving straight through the thunderstorm and huge hailstones. He did the right thing to keep going because when the water came pouring from the mountains it hit the motorway behind him and about 5,000 cars and trucks are still strewn all over the road. The tsunami was over 2 metres high and so anyone living on the ground floor of a building with no access to an upper floor had no chance and were drowned. We had more rain in 8 hours than in the whole of the last 12 months.
@Adrian Mcgrath: “such tragedies are “entirely avoidable” if people can be kept away from surging flood water, said Hannah Cloke, hydrology professor at the University of Reading.“
She needs to get real! Unless people are not allowed to live anywhere between mountains and the sea! Or anywhere near a river bed (usually completely dry except when a big storm hits their source mountains. ) .
In 1972 a huge storm hit here and a massive wall of water tore down a bridge with a train crossing. People and thousands of cows, sheep, goats and wild animals were washed into the sea and for weeks the beaches were covered in dead animals and vegetation.
My deepest sympathy to the families of the people who lost their lives in Spain
like in France, Germany , Italy and other countries they will soon discover or admit that the funding for maintenance in order to avoid that was not enough or non existent for the past decade.
will there be any accountability if that is the case or the “lesson learned” ?
@Dominic Leleu: maintenance and overdevelopment.
Some start to recognize there are too many areas completely concreted over: this prevents the water from being absorbed in the ground, and it just flows down and accumulates, flooding everything in its path.
This not only in Valencia but in pretty much every place that was flooded in the past year. I doubt lessons “will be learnt” as more housing estates means more money for the local council(lors)…
@Jerry LeFrog: if you get 6 times the monthly rainfall in 8 hours no amount of preparation will suffice. No amount of open ground would be able to absorb that.
#stopburningstuff
@Ciaran Sherry: I bet you burnt stuff
@Shane O Mac: Great response you sack
@Freda Peeple: Ur a narky ole wagon
This has happened before in Valencia. Once, in October 1957, 50 people were killed when there was a smaller population and also November 1897.
@RobbieK: yes, climate catastrophies have always happened. But now they are happening more often. That’s just a fact whether you like it or not.
@RobbieK: and after that the rerouted the river away from the town to prevent it happening again. The former riverbed was turned into a beautiful city park. But when they get 6 months of rain in one day no amount of defences can stop the devastation.
Normally its asia or the states that get hockeyed this is very close to home we need to start getting very worried!
The failure to warn people of the disaster is blamed in the decision, in November 2023, to scrap the Valencia Emergency Unit (UVE). It was set up only months earlier, to warn of natural disasters. It was closed due to pressure from the right wing populist Vox party, who are sceptical of human caused climate change, supposedly on grounds that UVE was wasteful and duplicated the role of central Government agencies.
In any case, the warning of floods went out too late, and even as bridges were being washed away, a government official was on TV reassuring people that the storm would end at 8pm. That is when the flooding and storms got worse.
Nature at work unfortunately, fifty plus years ago a similar flooding took place in Spain,
It was a freak event, happened before in 1972, probably won’t be another one for another 50+ years. Stop with the catastrophic predictions, would yiz ?
The question is why the government doesn’t prevent this disaster. Look at la florida in America. And u have the answer
Corrupt politicians
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