Samsung’s Galaxy S4 was always going to be a big seller — probably the best-selling Android smartphone of 2013 — but the Korean company has lost $12 billion in market value due to concerns that the two Galaxy S4 variants that were recently announced will have a detrimental affect on its profit margins.
Brokers are also concerned that the growth prospects for Samsung smartphone business have “dimmed” following rumors of a new iPhone trade-in program from Apple.
The HTC One has been incredibly well received since it launched last month, but the handset was just too late to have a positive impact on HTC’s profits during the first quarter. The Taiwanese company made just $2.8 million in profit during the three-month period, which is a 98% drop from the $152 million it saw a year ago.
LG has today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012, during which the South Korean company sold 15.4 million cellphones and saw a 2% increase in sales and revenue of $2.58 billion. 8.6 million of those devices were Android-powered handsets, with “premium LTE smartphones” like the Optimus G and the Optimus Vu 2 leading the way.
Verizon has today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012, which has been its best yet in terms of subscriber growth. The company added 2.1 million new customers during the three-month period, bringing its total number of subscribers up to 98.2 million, with 58% of those customers using a smartphone.
Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC failed to meet analysts’ estimates during the fourth quarter of 2012, posting an operating income that of just NT$600 million ($21 million). The average estimate from 20 industry analysts was NT$1.11 billion, according to Bloomberg — that’s almost double the figure HTC actually achieved.
