The Samsung
Galaxy S6 is about to hit retail stores in April, but Apple has nothing to fear from it. Samsung is on a similar trajectory to HTC, despite its much more substantial advertising budget and resources. While there will likely always be a market for premium high-end Android smartphones, there are at least two significant factors that will see this segment struggle to reproduce the types of profits that it has previously for HTC and Samsung.
The first is that Apple is now making iPhones with larger displays, which was previously a key point of differentiation between high-end Android maker's devices, and those from Cupertino. The second is that there is no shortage of Chinese competitors who are doing exactly what Samsung did to Apple in its early charge against Apple's iPhone -- undercutting it with premium-styled smartphones at substantially reduced prices.
HTC gained a notable leg up in the mind of Android consumers by being the first partner that Google chose for its Nexus devices program with its
Nexus One. It was also the first major Android maker to introduce smartphones with displays crossing the four-inch mark with the
Evo 4G, and then into the five-inch territory. Part of the success of these early, large-screened devices made by HTC came by accident.
HTC EVO 4G had a 4.3-inch display in 2010, but poor battery life
In order to compete with the battery life-versus-power ratio that Apple has pretty much been on top of throughout its succession of iPhone models, Samsung needed to make larger devices so it could accommodate the greater thermal dynamic requirements of its less-optimized processors, as well as the larger battery needed to power them. Adding a larger display was convenient, but it was also a necessary design workaround -- and one that still continues to some extent in today's Android flagship smartphones.
Even now, there are not too many 4- to 4.7-inch Android devices that feature the same high-end processor and specifications found in their stable-mate devices with five-inch or larger displays -- unlike the
iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which are both very similarly specified. Regardless of what was the true motivation for the rise of Android devices with larger displays, the fact remains that they have become very popular with consumers.
4.7-inch iPhone 6 packs near identical specs to 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus
However, with larger displays came further demands and drains on battery life, with consumers often very critical of the battery life of some of HTC's initially successful, but battery-draining large-screen phones. A scan of discussion boards over the years reveals, at least anecdotally, that while HTC made some early successful gains thanks to large screened devices, it subsequently came at the expense of a less-than-satisfactory customer experience, for which it continues to pay the price today.
Despite producing among the best devices in its history, and which have been very well-received by critics, HTC has struggled to remain both relevant and profitable, with a string of dreadful financial results in recent years. Further, with its massive advertising budget and technological resources (coupled with some help from Google's Nexus device program), Samsung entered the consumer consciousness by developing some early Galaxy devices that offered great specifications and iPhone lookalike designs, all at very sharp prices. Not only did this steal HTC's thunder, but it also made considerable inroads into the high-end smartphone market that Apple had begun to dominate.
Samsung's original iPhone clone, the Galaxy S
By copying the look and feel of Apple's iPhone, yet differentiating its products with larger displays, Samsung had made some spectacular early gains in the smartphone market. Once it gained a measurable foothold, Samsung quickly started to inflate the prices of its high-end Galaxy S-line smartphones, which -- while it continued to enjoy a display size advantage over the iPhone line -- has helped to deliver it massive profits until recently, when its profits have
suddenly collapsed.
While HTC burnt some of its early customers with poor battery life, Samsung also managed to put off would-be returning customers with less-than-stellar customer support, as well as a substandard software experience. Its Android-based TouchWiz interface brought a new meaning to the term "bloatware" by adding numerous, but hardly useful "features" that bogged users down in a quagmire of functionality and complexity that did not add to the user experience, but rather detracted from it. So much so that Samsung, in its Galaxy S6 pitch, is promoting the fact that its new flagship device has up to 40 percent fewer software "features" than its predecessor -- and indeed this is a key selling point. Added to this, slow updates to the latest version of Android have also put customers off its smartphones.
Apple, meanwhile, has continued to work hard on what it has always done better than any other consumer technology company -- make beautifully designed devices powered by powerful, yet very user-friendly software, all backed up with exceptional customer care and support. The only variation to its highly successful formula in the past 12 months was to deliver a hammer blow to the profit margins of Samsung (and any other would-be high end Android device maker) by delivering smartphones with larger displays.
This is hardly "imitation," despite Samsung having the gall to suggest that Apple copied them, after it had already "copied" HTC with larger-screened devices. "Varying display sizes" is not anywhere near the crime that Samsung has (literally) been convicted of, the crime of studiously copying Apple's iOS operating system and device design approach.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly stated in the past few years that Apple was not against bringing larger smartphones to market; it has always been about providing an overall customer experience that would meet Apple's own extremely high standards.
Usability of larger-screened devices has always been part of that equation, but so also has been providing customers with products that had a perfect balance between performance and battery life. Large displays with high pixel densities suck battery life like no other smartphone component, barring the CPU. Apple only made the move when it was confident it could do so without negatively impacting the customer experience.
There is no question that Samsung's Galaxy S6 counterpunch is Samsung putting its best foot forward, due to the recent runaway success of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The S6 is made from more premium materials, and comes in two options, one with a curved AMOLED display, and the other with a more traditional 5.1-inch rectangular display. However, it seems that in planning to make a sales comeback, Samsung's Plan B is also its Plan A -- copy Apple.
Samsung Galaxy S6 - Familiar much?
Like many, I was taken aback when I saw the edge and end profile of the Galaxy S6's aluminum body. You cannot look at it without immediately thinking iPhone 6. If Samsung thinks that customers are going to buy the Galaxy S6 because it looks like an iPhone clone as they may have in the past, it is mistaken. Firstly, the device is likely to be priced high; especially the Galaxy S6 Edge model, which is arguably the more attractive of the two, despite obvious questions about the practicality of the curved display.
Secondly, it continues to run Samsung's TouchWiz UI, which even if improved, is still not as well-designed as Apple's iOS, nor is it a design improvement over Google's stock version of Android 5.0 "Lollipop." Third: the market is absolutely flooded with Android devices, many of which offer similar functionality and raw specifications (or soon will) at a fraction of the cost made by Chinese competitors like Xiaomi and Huawei, among others.
While Samsung may well ship millions of Galaxy S6 devices, it seems highly unlikely that it will enjoy the level of profit that it has in the past, an area in which Apple now dominates. The fact is that in recent quarters, Samsung has sold millions of Galaxy S5 and S4 smartphones -- yet it has still gone backwards in both market share and profit. Another blow is that Google looks to have turned to Huawei to develop its next Nexus smartphone, in a move that will give it the type of leg up that HTC and then Samsung initially enjoyed, particularly in the crucial Chinese market.
To get a sense of just how big the wave is that Apple is riding at the moment, estimates suggest that (despite having just a small handful of iPhone models in its lineup), Apple actually sold more iPhones that Samsung did across its entire and massive smartphone portfolio -- to become not only the number one high-end smartphone maker in the world, but also taking the title of the
global number one overall smartphone vendor from Samsung.
This is a particularly telling result, and one that is quite mind-blowing when you consider that Steve Jobs' original publicly-stated goal for iPhone sales was to grab just one percent of the global smartphone market. Against this backdrop, and the growing threat of Chinese smartphone vendors, it seems unlikely that Samsung will return to the profit levels it has enjoyed from selling smartphones in recent years.
Capping things off, incredibly, Samsung has also chosen to drop microSD card support and a replaceable battery from the Galaxy S6 as it pursues similar design goals to Apple. It appears as though Samsung think that if it works for Apple, it will work for them too. However, Android users are a notoriously fickle bunch. They don't like features being stripped from devices in favor of design -- just ask HTC, which eventually returned a microSD card option to its line of One smartphones after initially deleting it.
HTC One (M9) features a premium design and a microSD slot
When espousing the virtues of the Samsung Galaxy range of smartphones over the iPhone, Android forum users have often touted the microSD support and removable battery as important differentiators. So not only does Samsung look as though it is unlikely to make inroads into Apple's iPhone 6-led market dominance, it looks as though it may have alienated a portion of its install base in relentless pursuit of its Apple "wannabe" obsession.
It will be interesting to see how Samsung's Galaxy S6 performs. I will be very surprised if it manages to turn Samsung's fortunes around, just as HTC has struggled to turn its fortunes around despite delivering the impeccably-designed HTC One M7 and HTC One M8 over the last two years. In the meantime, Apple will continue to run its own race, focusing on what it does best -- while Android makers like scramble among themselves to pick up the few remaining scraps of industry profit.
-- Sanjiv Sathiah (
@sathinator)
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