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Marginal? Holy shit, how isn't this completely transparent and dead, like my post will be? Samsung is pulling in about $4B profit per quarter from their smartp

Marginal? Holy shit, how isn't this completely transparent and dead, like my post will be? Samsung is pulling in about $4B profit per quarter from their smartphones. "Marginal"? In what universe is $16B per year "marginal"? Certainly not this universe. Just as a point of reference, Samsung's smartphone profits are greater than Walmart's profits. It's greater than the overwhelming bulk of world corporations.

type0 10y ago
> Samsung is pulling in about $4B profit per quarter from their smartphones. "Marginal"? In what universe is $16B per year "marginal"? Certainly not this universe. It's Galaxy, not universe!
slgeorge 10y ago
Yeah, and the bit you're missing is that Google basically forces them the hardware manufacturers to compete in a way that means only one can win for any cycle. It's a zero sum game - the last couple of years Samsung has done well, but it's also integrated in a way that means it offsets investments in other areas (e.g their chip business). Most of the others have no hope of this - look at the bath that HTC has taken in the last three years, do you see Sony saying that they make money from mobile? At the scale of investment required to run a mobile business, Android is generally a bad thing, it's commodifying them in the way that Intel did to the desktop PC market.
- grobbles 10y ago
  only one can win for any cycle. How so? Samsung simply executes very well. HTC has notoriously executed terribly, but even with HTC making misstep after misstep, Android has literally kept over 10,000 HTC employees employed for years. What was their alternative? Cede the market? Go all in with Windows Phone? Try to do their own thing? (See: Blackberry). Further, you could say that the entire smartphone market is zero sum. Apple is just as susceptible, as seen recently. Android is generally a bad thing This is like Donald Trump tearing into trade agreements, imagining up some world where everything is so much different. Without Android, shops like HTC would have been out of business years and years ago. Apple would be absolutely owning the entirety of the market.

type0 10y ago

> Samsung is pulling in about $4B profit per quarter from their smartphones. "Marginal"? In what universe is $16B per year "marginal"? Certainly not this universe. It's Galaxy, not universe!

slgeorge 10y ago

Yeah, and the bit you're missing is that Google basically forces them the hardware manufacturers to compete in a way that means only one can win for any cycle. It's a zero sum game - the last couple of years Samsung has done well, but it's also integrated in a way that means it offsets investments in other areas (e.g their chip business). Most of the others have no hope of this - look at the bath that HTC has taken in the last three years, do you see Sony saying that they make money from mobile? At the scale of investment required to run a mobile business, Android is generally a bad thing, it's commodifying them in the way that Intel did to the desktop PC market.

grobbles 10y ago
only one can win for any cycle. How so? Samsung simply executes very well. HTC has notoriously executed terribly, but even with HTC making misstep after misstep, Android has literally kept over 10,000 HTC employees employed for years. What was their alternative? Cede the market? Go all in with Windows Phone? Try to do their own thing? (See: Blackberry). Further, you could say that the entire smartphone market is zero sum. Apple is just as susceptible, as seen recently. Android is generally a bad thing This is like Donald Trump tearing into trade agreements, imagining up some world where everything is so much different. Without Android, shops like HTC would have been out of business years and years ago. Apple would be absolutely owning the entirety of the market.