Why are manufacturers losing money on Android?

[nube_android]

I have been reading lately and some websites and forums say all the manufacturers are losing money except Samsung and that this would be a good reason for them to switch to Windows Phone 8. Is this true? Why? Or is this just MS propaganda?

 

[anon(94115)]

not true

The only thing that has been down is net profit, but that is still profit.

 

[cynicist]

If it wasn't profitable they wouldn't be making phones.

 

[sr2012]

I think they are trying to make too many models too fast.

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[sting7k]

I have been reading lately and some websites and forums say all the manufacturers are losing money except Samsung and that this would be a good reason for them to switch to Windows Phone 8. Is this true? Why? Or is this just MS propaganda?

They might not be outright losing money but they are seeing their profits fall which is not a good direction to go. The reason being; look around you. The majority of people are probably holding an iPhone or some Galaxy variant.

Honestly, I've never seen any Sony or LG Android phones out in the wild. HTC phones are getting more and more sparse. Black Berries are almost non-existent now. I do occasionally see a Nokia Lumia now; about as rare as a Black Berry. The Chinese manufacturers (ZTE, Asus, etc.) seem to be staying in China. I'd say in third place is Motorola. I see Razr's and Razr Maxx's quite a bit.

Who does that leave standing...Samsung and Apple.

Here's a run down of the 8 people including me sitting next to me here at work; HTC Titan II, iPhone, Galaxy Nexus (me), iPhone, Galaxy S3, Razr Maxx, iPhone, iPhone. That's 75% in this very small sample using an Apple or Samsung device.

 

[Ry]

Their margins are tighter (vs. the iPhone).

And I doubt they see any revenue from apps purchases in the Play Store (vs. Apple and iOS App Store).

Samsung wins because they were in a great position to control supply with the power to actively market their products.

 

[Shadowriver]

There is cases where manufacture do sell hardware in lose, Sony sold PS3 on lose to make price lower, so there more people buying other stuff so they can make up that lose in other areas. But i case of mobile phones i don't see how they could make-up lose form selling hardware.... mayeb some deals with carriers i don't know. Either way if they do sell in lose it's part of stratedy and they know what they doing, ofcorse if won't work in long-term they will do something else.

 

[Ry]

There is cases where manufacture do sell hardware in lose, Sony sold PS3 on lose to make price lower, so there more people buying other stuff so they can make up that lose in other areas. But i case of mobile phones i don't see how they could make-up lose form selling hardware.... mayeb some deals with carriers i don't know. Either way if they do sell in lose it's part of stratedy and they know what they doing, ofcorse if won't work in long-term they will do something else.

See bloatware.

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[sr2012]

See bloatware.

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The Xperia S has quite a bit of bloatware and was unusable on 2.3.7. On 4.0.4 official Sony release it is not that bad once you disable some of the built-in apps.

There are a few nice things out of the box like weather so for beginners it is now not too bad. How it can compete with Samsung, that's another thing altogether.

PS Swype is quite nice on this too. Can't imagine why iPhone still doesn't have it.

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[Shadowriver]

The Xperia S has quite a bit of bloatware and was unusable on 2.3.7. On 4.0.4 official Sony release it is not that bad once you disable some of the built-in apps.

There are a few nice things out of the box like weather so for beginners it is now not too bad. How it can compete with Samsung, that's another thing altogether.

PS Swype is quite nice on this too. Can't imagine why iPhone still doesn't have it.

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Because the close polices + they use native code which is not so plug-in friendly as Java. Not to mention Android didn't have virtual keyboard at the begining (as G1 had physical keyboard), so as resut first virtual keyboard was made by 3rd party, thats might be the reason why Google decide to implement such system to not kill existing solutions + it allows to do some other things, let 3rd party to support very exotic langueges

 

[JHBThree]

Android?s combined share of the top five European markets rose to 64%, up from 51% a year earlier. So I don't think manufacturers losing money on Android. If so, how can android become so popular ?

Market share has no bearing whatsoever on profitability, especially considering that that marketshare is cannibalizing share between other android manufacturers and not other OSes. All of the manufacturers except Samsung are struggling to stay profitable. Motorola, LG, and HTC all have been on the downslide since Samsung started to rise.

 

[anon(94115)]

See but if you look at it, only one of those companies have had a serious hit, and it is because they released a great phone worldwide. Yeah the one series sorta is, but it had its issues, the nexus certainly is, but showing the consumer what the sgs3 can do, and that the nexus doesn't have those features makes it pale in at the very least perception. Throw in a sparse camera and only half the us market and it will not be a boost to lgs bottom line that much.

Love the plastic or hate it, the phone of the year did it, did it right, and did it everywhere.

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[sr2012]

See but if you look at it, only one of those companies have had a serious hit, and it is because they released a great phone worldwide. Yeah the one series sorta is, but it had its issues, the nexus certainly is, but showing the consumer what the sgs3 can do, and that the nexus doesn't have those features makes it pale in at the very least perception. Throw in a sparse camera and only half the us market and it will not be a boost to lgs bottom line that much.

Love the plastic or hate it, the phone of the year did it, did it right, and did it everywhere.

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What was the problem with HTC? I can see the S3 has an amazing screen and feel but what were/are the issues with HTC?

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[JHBThree]

What was the problem with HTC? I can see the S3 has an amazing screen and feel but what were/are the issues with HTC?

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Limited storage (in the US), and being stuck on one carrier (in the US).

 

[sr2012]

Limited storage (in the US), and being stuck on one carrier (in the US).

That's a shame. Maybe Samsung succeeded more because they followed the Apple style of making the phone the hero not those *** carriers.

Luckily for Australia the two major carriers are alright and 4G rollout is underway.

That said Telstra has exclusive rights to the 4G OneX so I'm not sure that's a good thing because other carriers can only sell the 3G version so some people will just go for the S3 anyway.

Well for us users 2013 will be an interesting year but gonna be heck of a lot of hustle for the manufacturers.

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[badbrad17]

What was the problem with HTC? I can see the S3 has an amazing screen and feel but what were/are the issues with HTC?

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They also seem unable to put a reasonably sized battery in their phones. The One X+ is the only phone that is even close to where they need to be with a non-removable battery. It creates a negative impact on their product.

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[RyDawgBoston]

Android is growing at a great pace. Samsung is just stealing the thunder and spotlight.

I think most companies are just having a hard time competing with Samsung. Let's face it, the S3 and Note 2 are amazing phones. For the first time, I am seeing Apple people buying those devices. Samsung spent a fortune on advertising and put it on almost every carrier.

I always hated Samsung and was an HTC fanboy, but Samsung has won me over with the S3. I've had it for 5 months and love it. Samsung has a great screen, super fast, great battery life, removable battery, sd card, toggles in pull down menu (genious), light and sleek. Ear speaker is crystal clear with no buzzing like a lot of phones out their.

I know it's plastic, but lets face it all phones go in cases anyway.

Motorola makes nice phones, but limited to only one carrier. Plus whenever I use my friends Droids, they all have a buzz in the speaker. I told them and they don't believe me. I let them make a call to me and I swap phones to compare. They can't believe how great the call quality is on the Gs3.

HTC makes great quality phones and I had a few Evos and loved them, but my latest evo Lte had screen gliches, poor reception, multitasking was broken, no swappable battery, poor Internet browser (original evo had the best browser of any phone to date), Sense crashing constantly, random reboots, etc. I switched it out 4 times for a new one until Best buy said last time. I called and wrote to HTC and they told me to send it in and multitasking was not broken.

I got fed up and as much as I hated Samsung, I bought the Gs3 and tried it out. I was amazed at how much I fell in love with it and now am anxiously waiting for the GS4.

The moral to the story is, as other companies had issues and carrier restrictions, Samsung listened to their customers and built a great phone and put it on all carriers.

As much of an HTC fanboy I was, HTC did not listen to the problems it had in the beginning and forced people to Samsung. Now that they are with Samsung, their ain't no going back to anything else unless it's an Lte Nexus with great memory and battery and hopefully Samsung makes it.

The Gs3 took the spotlight, the Note 2 is writing home about it, and the GS4 is going to dominate the Android market and steal some of Apple's fans.

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[mantriak]

Not really seems to be true. Just take examples of Samsung, which have introduced multiple models for choice of customers. In true terms it has become possible only due to open source.

It depends on how companies make their policy keeping in view the requirements of customers.

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[badbrad17]

Android is growing at a great pace. Samsung is just stealing the thunder and spotlight.

I think most companies are just having a hard time competing with Samsung. Let's face it, the S3 and Note 2 are amazing phones. For the first time, I am seeing Apple people buying those devices. Samsung spent a fortune on advertising and put it on almost every carrier.

I always hated Samsung and was an HTC fanboy, but Samsung has won me over with the S3. I've had it for 5 months and love it. Samsung has a great screen, super fast, great battery life, removable battery, sd card, toggles in pull down menu (genious), light and sleek. Ear speaker is crystal clear with no buzzing like a lot of phones out their.

I know it's plastic, but lets face it all phones go in cases anyway.

Motorola makes nice phones, but limited to only one carrier. Plus whenever I use my friends Droids, they all have a buzz in the speaker. I told them and they don't believe me. I let them make a call to me and I swap phones to compare. They can't believe how great the call quality is on the Gs3.

HTC makes great quality phones and I had a few Evos and loved them, but my latest evo Lte had screen gliches, poor reception, multitasking was broken, no swappable battery, poor Internet browser (original evo had the best browser of any phone to date), Sense crashing constantly, random reboots, etc. I switched it out 4 times for a new one until Best buy said last time. I called and wrote to HTC and they told me to send it in and multitasking was not broken.

I got fed up and as much as I hated Samsung, I bought the Gs3 and tried it out. I was amazed at how much I fell in love with it and now am anxiously waiting for the GS4.

The moral to the story is, as other companies had issues and carrier restrictions, Samsung listened to their customers and built a great phone and put it on all carriers.

As much of an HTC fanboy I was, HTC did not listen to the problems it had in the beginning and forced people to Samsung. Now that they are with Samsung, their ain't no going back to anything else unless it's an Lte Nexus with great memory and battery and hopefully Samsung makes it.

The Gs3 took the spotlight, the Note 2 is writing home about it, and the GS4 is going to dominate the Android market and steal some of Apple's fans.

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Well put. I think your comments explain perfectly why Samsung is winning and HTC is losing. The DNA should have exploded on the scene but it still misses too many valuable points. #1 battery. #2 sd card. The S4 will destroy anything HTC is doing and it's a shame. I think the Nexus 4 is in a different category and will always do reasonably well due to price and software updates.

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[anon(94115)]

It isn't just that. It seems like whenever HTC put a device out, they feel the job is done. Compared to Samsung HTC does nothing in advertising. I do not watch a ton of network TV, but I cannot go an hour without a samsung commercial.

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