Dubai: After losing billions of dollars in market value last year, Samsung Electronics reported better-than-expected earnings for the first three months of the year, thanks largely to the early launch of its latest smartphones.
The world’s largest smartphone maker reported on Thursday an operating profit of 6.68 trillion Korean won for January-March, an increase of 12 per cent. The company’s net income for the quarter hit 5.25 trillion on sales of 49.78 trillion Korean won, while its revenue jumped 5.7 per cent to 49.78 trillion.
“The first quarter saw overall earnings growth led by the early launch and successful sales of the flagship S7 and S7 edge,” the company said in a statement.
In order to maintain its lead in the smartphone business, Samsung opted to release its latest Galaxy S7 handsets ahead of its staunch rival Apple, which is rumoured to unveil its next-generation iPhone in fall.
Ashish Panjabi, COO of Jacky's Retail in Dubai said Samsung's latest phones are indeed gaining a lot of attention in the market right now, thanks to their strong features and powerful specs.
"The Samsung S7 and S7 edge are both devices that have taken what was already an excellent product (Galaxy S6 edge) and made it far better than their predecessor. The improvements in particular that made the biggest difference were big improvement in battery life, better low light photography, expandable storage with the reintroduction of the SD card slot, a fast charge feature and better support for VR technologies," Panjabi told Gulf News.
"Even with a slew of new launches within the Android ecosystem from brands like HTC and LG, the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge is still far ahead in terms of performance and sales."
"Many brands decided to focus on the distraction value of nice-to-have features whereas Samsung’s focus was on core aspects of making a good device better."
Samsung sold more than 83.4 million smartphones to end users worldwide in the last quarter of 2015, much higher than Apple, which sold 71.5 million units, and Huawei, with 32.1 million units, according to Gartner.
Samsung also appears to be the favourite among mobile phone users in the UAE. During the second quarter of 2015, more than a third (32.6 per cent) of all handsets registered on UAE networks were produced by the Korean tech giant. Nokia came second with a share of 31.5 per cent, followed by Apple (14.2 per cent), according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA).
In terms of smartphone models, however, Apple's iPhone 6 took the biggest portion of the pie (4.9 per cent), followed by iPhone 5s and Samsung Galaxy S Duos (2.9 per cent).
Looking ahead to the second quarter, the company said it expects to maintain robust sales momentum and profit with the worldwide rollout of the latest flagship models, as well as an increase in shipments of the mid-to-low-end Galaxy A and J series.
“The company will reinforce its leadership in the premium smartphone segment on the back of the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, while continuing to increase volume and improve profitability in the mid-to-low segment.”
