Why Only Samsung Can Build iPhone Killers?


Bangalore: No handset in the world was able to outrun the dominance of iPhone in years. But finally, with its Galaxy S3, Samsung was able to outsell iPhone in the third quarter of this year by shipping 18 million handsets compared to 16.2 million sold by Apple. Even though the Samsung figures represent shipments, not sales, the point is, Samsung is currently the only company to challenge Apple when it comes to Smartphones.

According to Gigaom, the reason for this is back in 2010, when handset manufactures like Motorola and HTC concentrated on offering multiple handset models, Samsung had something else in mind. It was slowly taking an Apple like strategy i.e. focusing on one flagship phone. Samsung rolled out the first Galaxy S handset running on Android around the same time. Wit focus to one device, Samsung benefitted exactly like Apple- Common components, production scaling and similar experiences to device owners.

Within an year, Samsung surpassed Nokia as the top seller of Smartphones worldwide and with its flagship Galaxy S2, the company set a new sales record of 1 million phones in first 70 days. And one more year later, the company had outrun iPhone sales with its current flagship Galaxy S3. And according to Gigaom, here is the reason: All the hardware components inside Galaxy 1, 2 and 3 are manufactured by Samsung including the chips, displays and the flash memories.

Apple also controls the hardware manufacturing. But someone else is building it for the company and the company invests billions of dollars I these manufacturing units. Using this manufacturing edge, Apple produces more units which help it to introduce the phone to more countries and more carriers soon after the release. And when Samsung introduced its flagship S3, the device was made available in markets within 2 weeks, compared to the time its predecessor S2 took (around 6 months) to reach some markets like U.S.

So the thing is clear. With every iteration, Samsung is following to be more like Apple- controlling its own destiny. No other competitors- Nokia, HTC, Motorola or LG, don’t manage the component supply chain as good as Samsung and Apple, because they are not equipped to do so.