Samsung Electronics in Las Vegas Consumer electronics Launch Conference

In the first week of January 2014, Samsung Electronics in Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Launch Conference, please the "Transformers" series director Bay on stage to praise new products. Unfortunately, Bay just said his mission as a director, the scene of the inscription machine out of the question. He struggled to organize several sentences, but still couldn't tell what he could bring to the audience, and finally said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

In less than a year, Samsung's most lucrative smartphone business also went into an awkward pause like Bay's speech.

Two months ago, Samsung reported its worst performance in years, with handset-business profits down by about 3/4 from a year earlier, leading to a 60% per cent contraction in corporate profits.

By this, Samsung's pace of expansion has stopped.

On Christmas Eve, the biggest Samsung experience shop in London hangs out a permanent closing notice, the goods at the booth are all empty, the boxes and wiring boards are scattered. As the crown of Samsung's retail stores, the Samsung experience store, like Apple Stores, rents huge space in the crowded business district, putting all the company's products on a simple booth for human experience. Earlier this year, Samsung announced that it would create 60 new experience shops in Europe and 1400 new stores in the United States.

Meanwhile, Samsung's smartphone market share has fallen back to 3 years ago:

Just a year ago, Samsung was a miracle in the mobile phone industry. The company only entered the smartphone market in 2010, and two years later it overtook Nokia, BlackBerry, Apple, HTC and other pioneers to become the world's largest smartphone maker. By 2013, almost all of the smartphone's profits were divided between Apple and Samsung's two companies.

While Samsung declined, China's handset makers, such as Millet, Lenovo and Huawei, continue to grow at a high rate. Millet, in particular, is growing at an alarming rate like Samsung in the 2010.

operator of another IPhone

Samsung's decline is not particularly surprising, as its rise is not a subversive product like the IPhone, but a marketing channel at the right time.

From the Asymco, it can be seen that Samsung's explosive growth began in 2010:

The IPhone was 3 years old, and the world is already clear that the combination of full touch and app stores will be the future of smartphones. As an important sales channel for mobile phones, mobile operators need such products.

But the strategy for Apple's entry into every major market is almost always to find a local operator to set up a two or three-year exclusive partnership. In order to ensure the most favorable subsidies and promotional conditions in the negotiations, Apple's choice is generally not the largest one, such as the U.S. At&t and China Unicom are the second place.

IPhone in China, the United States, Britain and Japan four market and operators to cooperate with the timetable:

China:

June 2009-Unicom

March 2012-Telecommunications

January 2014-Mobile

United States:

June 2007-At&t

February 2011-Verizon

October 2011-Sprint

April 2013-T

United Kingdom:

November 2007-O2

October 2009-Orange (EE)

January 2010-Vodafone

Japan:

July 2008-SoftBank

October 2011-KDDI

September 2013-Docomo

Each of the operators who sold the IPhone gave Apple a huge subsidy, but none of them pulled a large number of new users into their networks.

So every operator who can't sell an iphone needs a product like that to keep its users, even if it's just as modern as the iphone. That's why, while Nokia's products lag far behind the iPhone of 2007, it still has the best record in 2010-Nokia is a good brand and has established partnerships with almost every operator in the world.

In February 2011, Nokia abruptly renounced its existing products and switched to Microsoft's Windows Phone. After about a year, Nokia did not launch any new competitive products. But operators can't wait a year, they abandon Nokia sooner than users, and Samsung becomes the preferred replacement. That year, Samsung pulled a near-vertical upward curve.

Carrier promotion can reduce the cost of purchase, is critical to high-end smartphone sales. At that time the market environment, Samsung as long as a good product can be successful. And Samsung is not just a formality, especially with regard to consumer trends, Samsung's 2011 Galaxy Note series has led to a growing trend in mobile screens:

Relying on screen size differentiation, Samsung's Galaxy S and note series successfully avoided direct competition with the IPhone in 2013, sustaining high growth.

Is there room for another iPhone?

2014, the "other IPhone" positioning encountered a survival problem.

Samsung's main mobile phone Galaxy S5 has sold only 12 million units in three months on the market this year, compared with about 1/4 less than last year's Galaxy S4, according to internal information obtained by the Wall Street Journal. Samsung originally expected to sell 20 million S5.

Apple's cooperation with operators around the world has been almost complete. In smart-phone markets such as China, the US and western Europe, almost all major mobile operators have started subsidizing the sale of iphones. In addition, although the reaction was a bit slow, Apple finally pulled out the IPhone 6 and 6 Plus with a screen size similar to that of Samsung this September. Apple will usher in the best performance in IPhone history in the fourth quarter, according to the current Third-party analysis.

After losing the difference between sales channels and screens, Apple's rivalry with Samsung is back to design, software and branding-each one of Apple's strengths.

To be the boss, no one can imitate Samsung has also tried to bring differences from all angles. For example, Galaxy S each generation is using better hardware and technology, production costs are increasing every year, while the IPhone is basically flat:

Samsung's marketing efforts are equally unmatched. In 2013, Samsung spent 14 billion dollars on marketing, 4.3 billion of which was used for advertising, and other costs were mostly used to motivate channels to promote their products. By contrast, Apple's advertising spending in the same period was only 1 billion dollars. Of the top 20 of global sales, Samsung 5.4% is ranked first in marketing spending, reaching 9 times times that of Apple.

2014, Samsung Advertising is everywhere, London Heathrow Airport terminal 5th was once renamed by Samsung Galaxy S5 terminal, Oscar ceremony stars holding Samsung mobile phone self-portraits. Even the Beijing Subway card machine under the inconspicuous corner, are also affixed to the logo of Samsung.

If such and marketing cannot prevent the Samsung Galaxy S series from slipping this year, it is clear that the "Android IPhone" has room for doubt.

Android is a bigger problem for Samsung

If Apple is just competing with Samsung for better products. China's Android makers are already threatening Samsung's high-end product lines with similar products.

With the performance of low-end processors and the evolution of Android, the user experience of low-end Android phones is getting smaller. These few years ago, with the help of Android, companies that struggled with technology to compete with international rivals brought in smartphones that priced only half their competitors, but not much usability.

Even the difference between mobile phone modeling is shrinking, today smartphones are ultra-thin fuselage, the front for large screen occupied. From mobile marketing began to hype steel plate, shoot the moon and glue can see how hard it is to do something different hardware.

Whether to buy a 5000-dollar Samsung Galaxy S5 or 2000 Yuan Millet 4, the vast majority of applications experience no difference.

Unlike Apple, which has built a different experience through a unique IOS system, it is increasingly difficult for Samsung to persuade users to spend two or three times times as much to buy a mobile phone that is similar to the experience.

In this context, millet, Lenovo, Huawei, Cool, OPPO and other Chinese Android phone manufacturers have grown rapidly, has taken up the world's top ten smartphone seven seats.

Samsung still sells more, but plunging profits suggest it is unable to maintain its earlier high-end positioning

Because of the lack of differentiation, the Android smartphone market has entered a price war just as it had in the Windows laptop market – a market in which Lenovo managed to shake off HP and Sony.

China's Android handset makers have a better business model than their laptop-era Chinese manufacturers. They're not just selling hardware. Millet today in China through relatively cheap mobile phones to get as many users as possible to occupy a portal. After owning the entrance, the hardware does not need to make much money by recommending games, electric quotient, video and other channels to obtain revenue. For such manufacturers, Samsung Eyes in the low-end is the main product of their own effort.

Samsung needs to subvert its own

In November 2014, Samsung Electronics Vice President Robert Yi told investors in New York that the company would reduce the cost of the remaining models by cutting their phone models by 1/3 to 1/4 next year. Earlier, Samsung also said it would use more unified accessories and lower production costs next year for different models of handsets. But such changes are not enough to allow Samsung to block Chinese smartphone makers while doing the same thing with the IPhone.

If Samsung's own low-end products and Galaxy S series do not have enough difference, it is bound to affect their high-end product line sales.

If the gap with the Galaxy S series is too large, its low-end mobile phones are less likely to pull away from the millet. As long as Samsung competes with Chinese companies within the Android system, it is hard to juggle both high-end and low-end products, as in the Windows notebook market.

1993, when the Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee to promote the transformation of the company, he said to a senior executives: "In addition to wife, children, everything to change." ”

Today's Samsung has achieved Mr Lee's expectations as one of the world's leading technology giants. But its core mobile phone business if want to grow green, still have to make a thorough change again. This time, it will be harder than it was 20 years ago.

2014 Other subversive

Microsoft office--still makes money, but it's getting further away from you.

Over the past year, Microsoft has made two major changes to office business, starting with Office for IOS at the end of March. As the first Office software designed for touch devices, Microsoft chose the IPad rather than its own Windows as the starting platform. Then, in early November, office was completely free on the mobile platform, and users no longer needed to order Office 365 services to edit documents.

But its growth is not ideal. According to the numbers from App Annie, even the best performing Word in the Office suite has started to decline since the beginning of the release:

Microsoft Office Word's ranking in the Apple App Store, from App Annie

The PC era, Office is a universal tool, from the corporate affairs of the home trivial, are loaded with Microsoft all docx, xlsx files saved and delivered.

In the smartphone age, when you open the Office suite on your phone, you'll see posters, travel diaries, calendars, books, movie lists, To-Do items in the default templates ...

But almost all templates are better addressed by apps or websites offered by other internet companies. Even Evernote, the same focus on productivity tools, has accumulated more than 100 million users this year. Office is getting far from everyone's daily lives.

In the hands of a mobile phone, 24-hour networking today, Microsoft's control of Office files are no longer the most effective form of sharing. The most effective is the sharing of content and hyperlinks into social networks by Internet services.

Microsoft is still safe. For the past more than 10 years, Office has been Microsoft's most lucrative business, steadily contributing about 1/3 per quarter to Microsoft, helping Microsoft become the technology industry's next-generation machine for Apple. It can be foreseen that in the future for a long time, it will also live well in the enterprise market.

But if there is any hint of a BlackBerry's decline, it is not going to last forever in the corporate market when a product that was originally used across the individual's daily use and enterprise completely loses its personal market.

China Mobile-a better pipeline with the help of the IPhone and 4G

2014, China Mobile 4G network spread nationwide, two generations of mobile phones to support the 4G of the IPhone began to sell. After filling up the network and model of the short board, China Mobile in the third quarter only increased by more than 27,000,004 G users, an increase of nearly 200%.

But despite the rapid growth of 4G users and the use of more traffic, China Mobile's profits in the three quarter of 2014 years ago still fell 9.7%, the lowest since the 1997 IPO.

According to CNNIC's report, in June 2013-June 2014, 5 applications were used in China for more than 50% of mobile users: Instant messaging, search, news, music, video.

They have one thing in common, except search, which is the business of mobile operators. In particular, China Mobile, SMS and Flying letter bearer of instant messaging, mobile newspaper to provide users with news, music downloads and ringtones were once billions of scale business. But all these businesses are undoubtedly dominated by internet companies in the smart-phone era. As for the new mobile electric business, call car, ordering, tourism and other services, but also with operators have no relationship.

Operators every day murmuring the so-called "OTT" is becoming mobile phone users The most basic service, even more basic than SMS and telephone. Despite better internet and mobile options, the new business that China Mobile brings to the mobile Internet is just a better conduit.

Thunder-by downloading started, with the download was overturned

Thunder 2014 summer to the United States listed, half a year down, the share price has fallen by half of the listing price. The latest quarterly results show that Thunderbolt's net profit is only 300,000 U.S. dollars, only about 5% in the same period last year.

Thunder from a promotion of pirated content of the download tool started, relying on the toll accelerated download, provide online playback to achieve profitability. But today's download is already an outdated way of using online playback to become mainstream. By the end of 2013, 428 million Chinese users had watched video content via video sites and their applications, according to CNNIC's report. And among them the highest ranked users are Youku potatoes, Archie PPS and Tencent video.

These sites, without exception, buy video copyrights and homemade video programs at a cost of hundreds of millions of from Chinese and overseas producers. Under the impetus of the video site, a large number of the original need to download or buy thunder through the Thunder members pay online watch the film, TV can be viewed directly online. And big money to buy copyright giants have enough power to crack down on pirated content. Starting from the Thunder before and after the launch, its platform to start to crack down on pirated content downloads, the loss of pirated content of the Thunderbolt, what else exists?

Relying on pirated downloads to start the Thunder, but also with pirated downloads were overturned.

Nintendo-misses the most important innovation in game interaction

Nintendo has been tough for a while with mobile gaming and Microsoft and Sony. But for 2014 years it was particularly bad, with Nintendo's game-related revenues, including home consoles and handheld consoles, only about $5 billion trillion, less than half 4 years ago:

Meanwhile, the global handset gaming business has exceeded 20 billion dollars in output over the past year.

The logic behind Nintendo's insistence that it does not put any of its major games on the mobile platform is not hard to understand.

For the past 30 years, almost all the interactive innovations in game hardware have been driven by Nintendo. 1995 with virtual Gameboy into VR, 1996 Nintendo 64 will be rocker and trigger key to determine the basic interactive mode of home game consoles, 2004 DS start Touch Pen game, 2006 with the WII implementation of the body sense control, 2011 3DS will be naked 3D Bring into the daily consumption.

Innovative hardware interaction forms, together with excellent game design, help Nintendo to differentiate and sell more games to rivals.

But today, the most important and widely used interactive innovation is in the touch screen of smartphones. At the same time, the app Store, pushed to popularity by Apple, has turned every mobile phone around you into a game console for Nintendo's time.

Nintendo's refusal to accept the most important interactive change in the mobile era may ensure that it does not become a game-making company on another IOS, but its contention for user time with handheld consoles and smartphones is unlikely to succeed.

Mechanical hard Drive

The popularity of 7/24 of networked, online music and video has greatly reduced the user's reliance on local storage capacity. Solid-state drives with relatively small capacity but with better speed and size have also been popular over the past few years with mobile computing devices and ultra-thin notebooks.

September 2014, Seagate completed the acquisition of LSI Flash business. Seagate has passed a number of products in 2013, a shallow solid-state hard drive market, the acquisition marks the mechanical hard disk giants on the solid state drive attitude change, the traditional mechanical hard drive will be seen from the day-to-day computing equipment fade.

Physical retailing

As a continually subversive industry, physical retailing has been tough this year. Just past the double 11, Alibaba sold 57.1 billion yuan a day of merchandise, this number reached the domestic largest retail industry giant Suning 2013 annual income of half.

Even as more American retail giants try to run a large store, slowing global expansion, building brand stores, and picking up goods from stores, the results are limited. Physical retailers such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and suning have exhausted their efforts to avoid subversion. But it seems they are slowing the process.