Samsung became the king of the smartphone world with the release of its Galaxy S3 smartphone back in 2012. Since then, the South Korean mobile giant went on to register five straight quarters of record breaking profit margins. However, shortly after that magnificent 15 month run, the company’s mobile business succumbed to struggles, as its subsequent smartphone offerings, including its flagship devices, never really appealed as much to mobile users as before. The result was not pretty, with seven consecutive quarters of decreasing profits.
During the first three months of 2016, however, it appears that Samsung may have finally managed to complete the comeback it has been trying to engineer for more than a year now. Just this week, the South Korean phone maker registered a first quarter profit amounting to $5.8 billion, which represents a 12 percent improvement over the numbers posted during the first quarter of 2015. Moreover, the $5.8 billion profits easily surpass the $4.8 billion average projection offered by various industry watchers, as compiled by Bloomberg.
It is safe to say that Samsung’s mobile business has bounced back, posting an operating profit in the amount of $3.4 billion, which signifies an improvement of almost 42 percent compared to the profits registered during the same quarter the previous year. The $3.4 billion is also considered the higher profit that the company has recorded since the second quarter of 2014, nearly a couple of years back.
Samsung should thank the immense success of its latest flagship devices, the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge. The handsets were launched in March early this year, way ahead of Samsung’s normal schedule, in order to get a jump on smartphone rivals. As estimated by Korea Investment & Securities, the phone maker likely sold around 9.5 million units of its Galaxy S7 devices around the world in the first three months of 2016. Quite an achievement, considering that technically, the devices were made available for less than a month during the first quarter of this year (they were released in March).
The strategy to launch the new Galaxy S7 devices early may have worked, and has really helped the South Korean powerhouse to regain much of its confidence as it faces what various analysts are saying is a down year for smartphones in general. As noted by research firm Strategy Analytics, for the first time since 1996, the total volume of smartphone shipments around the world has declined compared to the previous year’s.
