Samsung Smartphone Market Share 2014: The Korean Company Seeks Smartphone Revamp To Arrest Profit Slide

The Galaxy S smartphone flagship of Samsung suffers in the high tier market from the popularity of the new iPhone 6 of arch-rival Apple, its middle and low-end handset segment is also dared by Chinese handset manufacturers like Lenovo, Huawei and Xiaomi. Other local brands like Oppo and Kata.

According to an analyst at IM Investment and Securities, Lee Min-Hee, "Suddenly, Samsung finds itself sandwiched between Apple and the Chinese makers."

Presently, Samsung is still the comfortable leader in number of slaes, but its global market share has dropped from 35% last year to 25%, based on the reports of Strategy Analytics.

The awaited changes have supported Samsung to stay in the "buy list," of may tech analysts in spite the current earnings plunge.

Strength in diversity

The multi-headed and far-flung entities that make up Samsung gain a collective profit equal to about 20% of South Korea's yearly economic outcome, and this multiplicity is a major strength.

There is a life after smartphones for Samsung that is also the global and biggest maker of memory chips and flat screen TV, unlike Blackberry or Nokia.

Since 2011, the mobile division had been the most profitable, but the present downfall during the third quarter, saw Samsung's position reclaim in the semiconductor market, which registered 10% revenue growth to DRAM chips and NAND flash memory.

Baek Jee-Ho, the vice president of the semi-conductor unit, said a present race by liw tier smarktphone manufacturers to upscale performance and features guarantees to pay high dividend of chip sales in the future.

He said, "I see far more demand for our DRAM chips next year as minimum memory capacity for low-end smartphones keeps growing."

As for HMC Investment and Securities greg Roh explained in a conference, "The stellar years of 2012 and 2013 were highly abnormal. What we're really seeing now is things going back to normal."