Samsung Silent On Disastrous Galaxy S6 Sales

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Do you have a citation?

Of course not.

People love to repeat this with NO FACTS to back it up.

Here are some facts:

Samsung was the market leader. They had SD and removable battery.

HTC was "the next big thing". They were on fire. They had SD and removable battery.

Then HTC removed them. Now they're a distant 5th place and youre more likely to see a Windows phone in the wild than an HTC.

Nexus was the "next big thing". Amazing specs. INCREDIBLE price. No SD card and no removable battery? It bombed, hard.

Samsung kept the SD card and removable battery, and their sales wouldnt stop growing.

Then they removed it, and now their new phone is bombing.

But no, nobody cares.

How about some anecdotal information? I (sadly) worked for Verizon Wireless for 9 months. Every day people would ask for phone recommendations. "Whats the difference between x and y? Why should I pay for z?"

99.9% of the time, after explaining what the phones had, they'd go with the one that offered removable battery and SD card.

But please, I am sure you have a citation that "nobody cares" right?

Right?

People HATE being nickel and dimed. When given the choice between paying $100 for an additional 16GB internal, or paying $40 for an additional 32GB via SD card, guess which one people pick?

You know what people actually don't care about, but the tech website throw a fit about? Plastic. Most casual users buy a case.

Just read this thread. Every other post is someone saying theyll pass on the S6 because it has no SD card. Minority of users, amirite?

This post makes my head hurt.

I've never had a Galaxy phone (or an Android phone for that matter), but your reasoning goes haywire. Why would you insist on "citations" and "proof" when you have nothing but anecdotal evidence and spurious correlations yourself?

Even your anecdotal claims sound suspect. "99.9%" of the people you talked with "every day" went for SD card phones and removable batteries? Truly, that is an absolutely correct statement with no embellishment whatsoever? You're telling me that 0.1%, meaning "nobody" in practical terms, ever bought an iPhone after they talked to you? Either you did your damndest to steer them into something you had a preference for or you're just pulling anecdotes from your ass. If your anecdotal evidence had even a passing resemblance to what happens for everyone buying a new phone we would see iPhones tanking hard and getting 0.1% of the marketshare. That simply doesn't happen.

If you're going to go nuts about "citations" and the like at least don't pull things from your ass yourself.
 
waterproof was also a big thing for me. im taking a vacation soon, and its sad id rather bring my s5 than my s6.
 
This post makes my head hurt.

I've never had a Galaxy phone (or an Android phone for that matter), but your reasoning goes haywire. Why would you insist on "citations" and "proof" when you have nothing but anecdotal evidence and spurious correlations yourself?

Even your anecdotal claims sound suspect. "99.9%" of the people you talked with "every day" went for SD card phones and removable batteries? Truly, that is an absolutely correct statement with no embellishment whatsoever? You're telling me that 0.1%, meaning "nobody" in practical terms, ever bought an iPhone after they talked to you? Either you did your damndest to steer them into something you had a preference for or you're just pulling anecdotes from your ass. If your anecdotal evidence had even a passing resemblance to what happens for everyone buying a new phone we would see iPhones tanking hard and getting 0.1% of the marketshare. That simply doesn't happen.

If you're going to go nuts about "citations" and the like at least don't pull things from your ass yourself.

Exactly.

SD card removed, sales dropped. That must 100% mean sales dropped because of SD card removal lol

That logic is abysmal.
 
****. The percentage of people who care about this is likely single digit.

I think the bigger issue here is For android phones there are many other good options now. Especially off contract affordable close to high end phones. The landscape has changed.

This. Galaxy S used to be easily the best android phone brand. Now everyone is making great Android phones and some with advantages over the S.
 
It doesn't feel like Samsung, for as big as they were getting, ever built up any real brand loyalty. Once competitors started doing the one thing they were known for (big ass phones) they sort of just disappeared into the sea of android oems.
 
This post makes my head hurt.

I've never had a Galaxy phone (or an Android phone for that matter), but your reasoning goes haywire. Why would you insist on "citations" and "proof" when you have nothing but anecdotal evidence and spurious correlations yourself?

Even your anecdotal claims sound suspect. "99.9%" of the people you talked with "every day" went for SD card phones and removable batteries? Truly, that is an absolutely correct statement with no embellishment whatsoever? You're telling me that 0.1%, meaning "nobody" in practical terms, ever bought an iPhone after they talked to you? Either you did your damndest to steer them into something you had a preference for or you're just pulling anecdotes from your ass. If your anecdotal evidence had even a passing resemblance to what happens for everyone buying a new phone we would see iPhones tanking hard and getting 0.1% of the marketshare. That simply doesn't happen.

If you're going to go nuts about "citations" and the like at least don't pull things from your ass yourself.

It's not the best post in the world, but he does bring up a good point. We on this forum are in the minority when it comes to technology research and knowledge - your average joe that wants a smartphone is a lot different than us and knows very, very little going into a phone purchase.

I worked at a Sprint store for 3 years, and a great deal of customers had a general idea of what they wanted when they went into the store, but not concrete.
-Customer wants a new smartphone.
-Salesperson shows the newest smartphones.
-Customer asks what the difference is, since they look vaguely similar.
-Salesperson has to pull something out of their ass, because try explaining pixels in layman's terms.
-Customer ends up going with cheapest or easiest-to-understand extra features.
 
my moto g keeps me happy, $35/m for unlimited everything

the enthusiast market always drops out when the platform is open
 
Lack of SD card fucked them over.

Not only that but also a smaller battery and no water proof this time. The S5 wouldn't be the same for me without the latter, especially. Only gripe is that the necessary cover flap on the bottom makes it not work with docks, but it's a small price to pay for the gained functionality.
 
They took everything they had that made them unique and better than iphone, threw it out the window and created an iphone that runs android.

bad move.

Yup. That's why I won't be upgrading. I enjoy the water resistance, SD Card, and other things that they've taken away with the S6. I'm not alone probably.
 
It's not the best post in the world, but he does bring up a good point. We on this forum are in the minority when it comes to technology research and knowledge - your average joe that wants a smartphone is a lot different than us and knows very, very little going into a phone purchase.

I worked at a Sprint store for 3 years, and a great deal of customers had a general idea of what they wanted when they went into the store, but not concrete.
-Customer wants a new smartphone.
-Salesperson shows the newest smartphones.
-Customer asks what the difference is, since they look vaguely similar.
-Salesperson has to pull something out of their ass, because try explaining pixels in layman's terms.
-Customer ends up going with cheapest or easiest-to-understand extra features.

This is EXACTLY it. People need to stop basing what the average person wants on themselves or their close friends.
 
Based on Samsung's own projections it's bad. One would assume they use those projections to gage production; which means they might have a ton of unsold inventory or have wasted money spinning up unneeded factories.

They are getting eaten from the bottom, which is pretty common. That how Samsung has found success in the first place. They eroded the established Japanese giants from the bottom up. They made stuff that was affordable quality. Now they have to deal with the Huawei's and Xiaomi's of the world doing the same thing to them.

It's tough to be the king.
They probably projected year over year growth at a constant (or even accelerating) rate. So, for example, if the S3 sold 5 million, and then the S4 sold 10 million, they probably projected the S5 at 15 million and the S6 at 20 million (these are made-up numbers).
 
It's not the best post in the world, but he does bring up a good point. We on this forum are in the minority when it comes to technology research and knowledge - your average joe that wants a smartphone is a lot different than us and knows very, very little going into a phone purchase.

I worked at a Sprint store for 3 years, and a great deal of customers had a general idea of what they wanted when they went into the store, but not concrete.
-Customer wants a new smartphone.
-Salesperson shows the newest smartphones.
-Customer asks what the difference is, since they look vaguely similar.
-Salesperson has to pull something out of their ass, because try explaining pixels in layman's terms.
-Customer ends up going with cheapest or easiest-to-understand extra features.

And I think that is fine. When a customer who knows little about a technology they're about to buy and ask questions they attach themselves to differences they can understand easily. They're not going to care about a "quad-core processor", especially if a phone with it and a phone without it seem to be running the same OS and images from what they can see. But they definitely know what "there's a slot here that you can use to buy more memory and holds more songs, pictures, and apps" means.

There's three problems with the post: 1) insistence on "citations" when he doesn't have any, 2) his "evidence" is simple correlations that really don't take anything of substance into account, and 3) anecdotal evidence that in no way extrapolates to an accurate portrayal based on sales numbers.

My point is that "nobody cares about an SD card slot or removable battery" is just as baseless a statement as "everybody cares about an SD card slot or removable battery". While I do agree that the features themselves are useful and absolutely should be included in as many phones as possible (I REALLY wish my iPhone 5s had a replaceable battery because it sucks right now), that's not a carte blanche to pull numbers, anecdotes, and faulty logic out of my ass to support my opinionated statement while deriding others' posts that I disagree with for being opinionated.
 
I wonder how many phones Sony expects to ship this year.

If Sony had a braincell in their head they would try to steal Samsung's high end market. Sony's image is on the rise and Samsung's is crashing. Sony also has great build quality. If they supported their devices better and worked more actively with carrier they could really make a dent.
 
If Sony had a braincell in their head they would try to steal Samsung's high end market. Sony's image is on the rise and Samsung's is crashing. Sony also has great build quality. If they supported their devices better and worked more actively with carrier they could really make a dent.

Sony's phones look pretty good but they have an "also-ran" vibe. They seem to have next to no presence in the larger phone market conversation.

Sony's biggest issue is how to gain market share without pouring money into the division. They clearly don't have the money to enter aggressively into the market, which is kind of what is required for them to truly compete with Samsung.
 
If Sony had a braincell in their head they would try to steal Samsung's high end market. Sony's image is on the rise and Samsung's is crashing. Sony also has great build quality. If they supported their devices better and worked more actively with carrier they could really make a dent.

This is what exactly Sony should be doing - and are doing it in the TV market by targeting the high end for the margins. I've got an original Xperia Z coming towards the end of my two year contract and have no idea what to upgrade to (probably go SIM only and wait for Sony's new flagship) BUT Sony are pushing the Lollipop update for the original Z series which is 2 years old which is great support by Sony standards and they have carrier support in the UK.
 
If Sony had a braincell in their head they would try to steal Samsung's high end market. Sony's image is on the rise and Samsung's is crashing. Sony also has great build quality. If they supported their devices better and worked more actively with carrier they could really make a dent.

I think there's an unfilled niche out there for something that's a whole lot like the Galaxy S 6 Edge, but running stock Android, priced around $100 cheaper (and that much we'll see soon), and with more coherent branding (the Galaxy Note/S line isn't as straightforwardly named as it could or should be, and plenty of Android phones have way too many suffixes going on in general).

I think the premium Android space is a lot harder to enter and excel in now that the screen-size differentiator is lost vs Apple, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Personally, I think the smartest thing for OEMs to do is to go in directions that Apple is clearly unwilling to and start delivering 30+ hour battery life as standard even at the cost of thickness.
 
Never been a fan of Samsung products, however, launching after the iPhone 6's incredible launch would have killed any phone makers forecast.

Also Samsung's me too schitk while simultaneously always taking potshots at Apple has to have worn thin on consumers.
 
Besides not being an iDevice, what exactly is the draw of the Galaxy line? I've used several of them, and they all felt clunky and badly constructed. My old iPhone may not have aged gracefully, but it's still fully functional, which is more than I can say for my Galaxy.
 
Don't really find this surprising at all. All phones this year are boring filler. I don't expect 6S to be any different.

Go back to the drawing board.
 
Forbes really are geniuses, they let anybody post a blog to Forbes.com and rake in billions of hits for random shit written for free by people who have nothing to do with Forbes.

I'm honestly tired of the way Android is always being fucked around with and Google is introducing more bugs than they fix lately and making things worse, not better. I got my dad an iP6+ because I didn't want to make him put up with the shit I put up with daily and if it weren't for the fact that text is still tiny on it I would seriously consider switching to iP6S+ this year. I wonder if Apple knows that keeping the same tiny-ass text size on huge screen defeats the purpose.

That sounds exactly like me. Was an Android user for about 3 years coming from the iPhone 4 but recently went back on a 6+. Even Nexus phones are a disaster on Android and honestly I just have no interest waiting for Google to get their shit together or having to manually find fixes because of all the fucking jank that still exists. Similarly, I got both of my parents iPhones because I don't want to be free on call tech support for them.
 
And the source for this is... Where? Or are you just pulling that out of your ass?

Likely anecdotal. Anecdotal here as well, but I'm seeing the same thing. I'm also switching back. (Iphone 4 -> Galaxy S4 -> Iphone 7/6S/whatever the hell it's called). The customization has never done anything meaningful for me on Android, and I don't pirate apps so not sure why else I would stick with Android.
 
Besides not being an iDevice, what exactly is the draw of the Galaxy line? I've used several of them, and they all felt clunky and badly constructed. My old iPhone may not have aged gracefully, but it's still fully functional, which is more than I can say for my Galaxy.

The s6 has the best processor on the market, and the newest and faster memory and RAM available, the best camera, the best screen, one of the best build qualities, wireless and fast charging, and fingerprint scanner. The speaker is good, the battery is average, it has every single feature you can think of in a smartphone, like NFC, infrared, and heart rate monitor. Touchwiz is improved (and imo pretty good). There's almost no downside except for price, but considering how often you use your phone isn't a big deal for a lot of people.
 
And the source for this is... Where? Or are you just pulling that out of your ass?

WSJ interview from January:

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, not surprisingly, argued that the demand is more than temporary. He said that fewer than 15% of recent iPhone buyers upgraded from other iPhones and that the majority switched from smartphones running Google’s Android operating system.

Apple's Q2 earnings results in late April:

“We are thrilled by the continued strength of iPhone, Mac and the App Store, which drove our best March quarter results ever,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’re seeing a higher rate of people switching to iPhone than we’ve experienced in previous cycles, and we’re off to an exciting start to the June quarter with the launch of Apple Watch.”
 
And the source for this is... Where? Or are you just pulling that out of your ass?
It was mentioned above but it's pretty common sense when you consider they finally launched a large screen phone. See link below.
Likely anecdotal. Anecdotal here as well, but I'm seeing the same thing. I'm also switching back. (Iphone 4 -> Galaxy S4 -> Iphone 7/6S/whatever the hell it's called). The customization has never done anything meaningful for me on Android, and I don't pirate apps so not sure why else I would stick with Android.

It's from an Apple quarterly call.

Edit: Beaten.
 
I think your posts are the one's not grounded in reality. Samsung threw away the biggest things that differentiated the galaxy line, I would tell nobody to buy an S6 because of the lack of sd card and battery removal. It's a bad thing in general.

What does your personal opinion of the S6 as a device, have to do with the sales projections and outcomes? The two are not necessarily the same, which is the point I was making in my post. That the removal of these features which you value, do not necessarily correlate with the drop in sales, which have been falling for some time.

Also, yes the S6 is missing an SD card slot and removable battery, but it has a sexier unibody design, premium feel, and considerably faster flash memory as a result. To some that will be preferable, to others it won't be.
 
What does your personal opinion of the competency of the S6 as a device, have to do with sales projections and outcomes? The two are not necessarily the same, which is the point I was making in my post.

Also, yes the S6 is missing an SD card slot and removable battery, but it has a sexier unibody design, premium feel, and considerably faster flash memory as a result. To some that will be preferable, to others it won't be.

I think the argument is that if those features mean nothing then what is to explain the poor sales? I think price is the only other reasonable response.
 
All the crappy builds before the S6 has left as sour taste in peoples mouth I think. The S6 will win them back, but not till the S7 or 8 drops I think.
 
Good.

Now bring back the stuff left behind with the S5 and stop catering to the form-factor-only crowd. They already have Apple for that.
 
You couldn't be anymore out of touch with the average consumer if you tried. That goes for removable battery too.

1 billion smartphones were sold last year.

If they were the best phone for 7% of the market, they would hit their sales target.

Being the 2nd-best phone for the average consumer gets you nothing.
 
Deserved. The phone was gimped big time. I would seriously consider an S5 over an S6.

They should build on the Note 4, now this thing is a beauty.

Also, start offering your phones unlocked. Buying from a carrier and signing a contract is so 2010, I would never.
 
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