As time goes by, more and more consumers are choosing cheaper, low-end smartphones over high-end smartphones. Not only are Asian phone vendors ramping up low-end smartphone production, but large companies like Samsung are starting to transition away from high-end devices in order to follow the money.
Samsung’s share price dipped another 5% on Thursday, dropping back to August levels. Markets have started expecting Samsung’s profitability to decline from the autumn quarter to the Christmas quarter. Analysts also fear that Samsung’s handset sales are shifting from high-end, high margin models to low-end models more quickly than expected. Possibly not coincidentally, the hot Chinese phone vendor Xiaomi just reported its phone sales exploded to 18.7 million units in 2013. That’s up 160% from a year earlier.
