On June 5th, an analyst from Susquehanna Financial Group warned that Samsung is privately telling investors to tone down their GS4 shipment estimates. One day later, an analyst from JPMorgan published a report saying GS4 demand was weaker than expected in Europe. Today, on the Taiwanese supply chain website that technology journalists love to hate, DigiTimes says Samsung has “revised downward its purchases of parts and components for its latest flagship model.”
How low are we talking? Roughly 20 million to 25 million GS4 units in Q2, and then another 20 million in Q3. That’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it should tell you something about the current state of the smartphone market that the world’s largest smartphone maker overshot how many units they should make of their flagship model.
This actually makes a lot of sense when you think about who is buying smartphone these days. With penetration levels exceeding 50% in many Western markets, the only people who don’t have a smartphone are people who don’t see why they should fork over 600 EUR for a device when a phone for less than half that price will do the same thing.
Does this mean the days of flagship phones are over? Not in the slightest, but you should definitely expect to start seeing everyone place a larger focus on their midrange devices.
