| Second tier by market share, Quincy (which is what counts)--several nice phones or prototypes doesn't make them first tier yet. If they really want to compete with Nokia head-on within the next several years, they will soon have to be selling more than five million handsets a week, more than ten times as much as they are now. They can make some headway over the next five years but they will have to execute perfectly, even if Nokia makes some blunders and damages its golden brand. To really, really compete with Nokia, however, they will have to execute a very aggressive growth program flawlessly for a decade, as did Nokia. Because Nokia's profit margins dwarf Samsung's ( because it can amortize its fixed development costs over more than ten times the volume, and because it has far and away the most clout with suppliers), because it is focused almost purely on wireless and not distracted by a myriad of unrelated businesses, and because Nokia's research and development expenditures in wireless, once again, dwarfs Samsungs, I'll believe it when I see it. |
