Friday’s decline in Samsung’s stock follows analyst worries that a more affordable Galaxy S4 Mini or the rugged Galaxy S4 Active smartphone will cut into GS4 sales. Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi says that “The mobile phone market is indeed a very volatile one.I was not expecting the GS4 to
have the same impact as the GS3, so in that sense, Samsung faces the same issues that Apple does.”
Apple widely expected to announce an older iPhone trade-in program and also a new cheaper iPhone, overall growth prospects for [Samsung’s] smartphone business have dimmed. Samsung has reported that orders for the GS4 have been cut by 20 percent to 30 percent starting in July, to 7 million to 8 million units per month, on weak sales in Europe and South Korea despite the huge Marketing campaign.
It should still be noted that the GS4 is reported to have sold 10 million units in less than six weeks on
initial sale. Also, Samsung remains the clear leader of Android devices on the market.
