Samsung is “placing the wrong bet” on its Galaxy S6 flagship Android smartphone, investment bank Oppenheimer says in a new research note, Business Insider reports.
Samsung, which is based in South Korea, has seen sales drop in China by more than 50% over the last year. Meanwhile, the company’s new Galaxy S6 flagship smartphone isn’t shipping as many units, while Apple iPhone sales are up. The S6 model Galaxy was supposed to fuel sales, but Oppenheimer says it wasn’t enough of an upgrade over previous versions to get customers to upgrade.
“When we look at Samsung’s flagship in 2015, the Galaxy S6 Edge, almost all of its differentiators fall back to hardware: a cutting-edge CPU, curved display, iPhone-like metal casing, front area fingerprint sensor, and camera with OIS,” Oppenheimer’s new research note reads. “At the same time, we see little improvement in Samsung’s software user experience, and no value-added to existing Samsung users who are on prior generations of devices.”
But apparently, Samsung isn’t alone in its smartphone sales slump. “In the past nine months, Android OEMs were unable to offer any competent competing solutions that may help reverse the share loss trend” as compared to the iPhone, according to Oppenheimer.