This hasn’t been a very happy day for Samsung so far – the Wall Street Journal reports that Samsung Electronics shares had their biggest single-day percentage drop in over nine months.
One of the potential reasons purported is a research note by J.P. Morgan analyst J.J. Park, noting that Samsung investors may be in for a disappointing number of third quarter shipments. He mentioned that monthly orders have been cut 20-30 percent since July, down from 10 million units to somewhere between 7 and 8 million. The note led to a hasty round of selling.
The most probable reason behind the lower order count would be the newly-announced model variants of the Samsung Galaxy S4, like the rugged S4 Active, compact S4 Mini, and larger S4 Mega (soon to be available in 5.8-inch and 6.3-inch versions). News of all this specialized hardware could be inspiring some hold-outs from would-be standard Galaxy S4 adopters. They even released new 8-inch and 10.1-inch GalaxyTab models with improved specs just last Monday, and there’s also the Galaxy Note line, with its next iteration due out in August.
So are sales of the Galaxy S4 slowing, or is Samsung’s love of releasing multiple versions of the same thing actually eating into its profits and sales? Samsung may be its own biggest competitor.
