It may be tempting to first compare the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 6 lineup against the Samsung Electronics Galaxy S6 line of phones, but Dan Costa says that the iPhone 6 is not really what the Galaxy S6 line is initially competing against.
Dan Costa, Editor-in-Chief of PCMag.com, tells CNBC in an interview that while both the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge smartphones can hold their own against the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, they are really first battling with fellow flagship Android devices.
“[…] Ultimately, when you look at the iPhone 6 and the Galaxy S6 standoff, you are really talking about different ecosystems, different platforms. I don’t know that a lot of people enjoy switching back and forth. Once they commit to a platform, they tend to stick with it. The question is whether this can compete with all the other Android handsets on the market – the HTC One, the LG G3 – and in that regard I think Samsung is going to make up ground,” Costa tells Dominic Chu
The interview was in light of Samsung releasing guidance of a 30% decline in profits for the current quarter. Chu was asking Costa whether the Galaxy S6 can curb this decline.
According to Costa, what has really been driving Samsung’s performance over the past years is its mobile handset business. He tells Chu that Samsung has had “an extraordinary success and an extraordinary run with the Galaxy phone line.”
However, he says that the South Korean consumer electronics giant got a wakeup call last year when the Galaxy S5 didn’t do as well as they hoped. The first-time stumble, as Costa describes it, sort of knocked them down the company a little bit. However, there is no denying that the Galaxy line has been one of the most successful products of all time, he says.
Nonetheless, the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge bring just the right amount of differentiation that Samsung has lacked in the last few years, he says, which may enable the company to stem their decline and compete well with other Android smartphone makers and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).
“I think it’s going to help a lot. We have tested the phone – both the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge, which is an even more interesting phone in a lot of ways – and I think they are going to do really well especially in the U.S. market. They match up well against the iPhone 6, against the HTC One. There are not a lot of new features, but the build quality is the big story here. It looks and feels like a premium device and that is what Samsung has been lacking. And also on the Edge, the fact that it has that curved screen is just part of that differentiation that Samsung has been lacking for a lot of years so I think that it is going to do really well,” Costa says.
Saying that the new line of smartphones from Samsung can go “toe-to-toe” with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s latest smartphones, Costa predicts that they will sell well.
Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management owned about 8.89 million Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares by the end of 2014.
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