Dan Frommer on Samsung: ‘There’s No Easy Fix’

Dan Frommer:

Today in Seoul, Samsung “reported its worst quarterly profit in two years and flagged uncertain earnings prospects for its key handset business,” Reuters’ Se Young Lee reports. Of course, Samsung thinks its new products will fix the situation.

But we’ve seen this story before. This particular chart shows Nokia’s adjusted closing price from the day Apple released the first iPhone, in 2007, to the day in 2013 when Microsoft announced it would acquire Nokia’s struggling handset business.

First, Samsung has to answer a major question: Do they continue their efforts as Android’s leading handset maker (and remain under Google’s thumb), or do they forge their own path with Tizen? Hard to see how they can have it both ways.

★ Friday, 1 August 2014