
Even though Samsung's recent quarterly numbers were abysmal, their stock actually soared by 4.5%. That is only because the estimates were worse than the final results. Still, looking at these results you know that Samsung executives must be sweating bullets right now. The company's profits for Q3 tanked by 60% on the year down to $3.9 billion, and its revenue back-pedaled 20% to $44.6 billion. Ouch! If that's better than what analysts' estimated, then the outlook must have been very grim.
The main reason that Sammy has been so hammered the past few quarters is two-fold. One, Apple has stepped up their game and has been rapidly stealing marketshare back from Samsung, especially with the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. This is putting extra pressure on Samsung at the high-end. The second factor bashing away at Samsung comes from the low-end market. Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, Huawei and others have been trouncing Samsung in the cheap phone arena where Sammy previously thrived.
It seems like a "perfect storm" of anti-Samsung tactical competition is weakening their position across the globe. Their are some analysts out there suggesting that Samsung is facing a "nightmare scenario." They are even comparing Samsung's precipitous drop to that of HTC or Nokia, both previous examples of former tech titans who were once the king of the hill, but are now struggling to survive (or got gobbled up in the case of Nokia). While it is highly unlikely that Samsung will ever fall as far as both of those companies did, it is likely the free-fall will not let up anytime soon.
Source: Samsung & BGR