South Korean manufacturer Samsung is one of the largest mobile phone companies in the world. It has some of the best mobile phones and technology in the market. However, due to the highly competitive nature of the mobile phone market, the company still takes some measures to stay on top. A recent market tracking report reveals that the Samsung Galaxy S22 series may not reach Samsung’s target of 30 million units. This is due to the poor performance of the flagship model. For this reason, Samsung won’t be keeping its eye on the bag with the Galaxy S23 series. In fact, there are reports that the price of the Samsung Galaxy S23 series will not increase.
The usual thinking is that Samsung will increase the price of the new series to make more profit. However, the company is worried that this will make the Galaxy S23 series less competitive. After all, if there are no buyers, no profit can be made. According to a South Korean report, Samsung’s MX division’s revenue rose to 32.21 trillion won ($25.3 billion) in the third quarter of 2022 from 28.42 trillion won ($22.3 billion) in the second quarter of 2022. This is a quarterly increase of 13.3%. Still, the company’s operating profit fell from 3.36 trillion won ($2.6 billion) in the second quarter of 2022 to 3.24 trillion won ($2.5 billion) in the third quarter of 2022. This is a 3.6% decline.
To adjust the Samsung mobile phone policy
According to previous reports, Samsung Electronics will adjust its mobile phone policy this year to provide better customer experience to users. This means Samsung will focus on improving the chip’s performance to compete with Apple’s iPhone. In recent years, Samsung’s profit-oriented models have still failed to achieve better market results than the iPhone. Now Samsung will no longer focus on cost cutting. However, the Korean company will focus on increasing the functionality that users want by ensuring that its chips perform better.
Some analysts believe that Samsung’s management is looking to regain consumer confidence by closing the gap with Apple in the high-end mobile phone market. In past strategies, Samsung only ensures that it makes a profit by cutting costs. That’s why the company has the mid and low-end Galaxy A series. However, this strategy seems to be failing especially due to the predominance of Chinese brands that offer very cheap models with decent performance. Samsung’s advantage seems to be disappearing.
This is also one of the reasons why Samsung almost became a household fringe brand after the Samsung Galaxy S7 Note incident. Even if this event does not happen, Samsung’s mobile phones will lose their original share in the low-end market. Finally, the inclusion of Chinese mobile phone brands is beyond Samsung’s reach.
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Samsung is struggling in the flagship market
In the high-end market, Samsung is also under attack and doesn’t have the firepower to fight Apple. Statistics show that in the third quarter, Apple’s share of the global high-end mobile phone market (above $400) was 57%, while Samsung Electronics had only 19%. It is also estimated that in the fourth quarter of this year, Samsung Electronics will pass the first market share of the entire mobile phone market to Apple (Apple 24.6%, Samsung Electronics 20.2%).
In this case, Samsung would be wise to adjust its mobile phone policy. Samsung’s upcoming Samsung Galaxy S23 series could be the first product released by Samsung after adjusting its strategy. This flagship series will come with the latest flagship processor, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. However, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that the Galaxy S23 series will use is quite different from the processor announced by Qualcomm. This flagship series will come with a high-frequency version.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 brings some improvements
Second generation. The Snapdragon 8 flagship chip is manufactured using TSMC’s 4nm process. The company officially claims that this new flagship chip has a 35% improvement in CPU performance compared to the first generation. Additionally, it also reveals that this chip has 40% better energy efficiency. This generation of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 adopts a new architecture. The new architecture is 1 + 2 + 2 + 3 and brings different performance. Based on the X3 Super Large Core, the Creo Prime has a core frequency of 3.2GHz. It comes with four large cores clocked at 2.8GHz and three smaller cores clocked at 2.0GHz.
The four big cores use two A715 and two A710 respectively. This is a “2 + 2” configuration. The new architecture allows Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to find the optimal balance between power consumption and performance. In high-load conditions or low-to-moderate-load conditions, the chip can provide extreme performance. The company claims that the chip has the potential to bring the best energy efficiency ratio. In terms of GPU, Adreno GPU equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 also brings Ray Tracing technology, with 25% performance improvement and 45% energy efficiency improvement.
There is a reason to increase the price of Samsung Galaxy S23 series
Significant improvements in performance and declining profits have given Samsung reason to raise prices. However, the latest news shows that the Samsung Galaxy S23 series will still maintain the same price as the previous generation, otherwise it will lose its competitiveness with the iPhone 14 series. It seems that Samsung is aware of where its problems lie. Whether this performance improvement can bring immediate results will not be known until after the press conference.