Samsung's strategy of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks has gotten the company to where it is now but in today's saturated market, that strategy no longer appears to be viable as evident by Samsung's latest financial quarter.
As such, the company is planning to scale back its smartphone output by up to 30 percent next year according to Samsung's head of investor relations Robert Yi during a recent presentation in New York. His comments were later confirmed by the company according to The Wall Street Journal.
During an earnings call last month, a Samsung executive said they plan to increase the number of components shared across mid- to low-end models in an effort to further leverage economics of scale.
Analysts believe that by having fewer phones on the market, Samsung will also be able to better manage deals with supply chains and inventory.
It's unclear exactly which phones Samsung plans to eliminate although I wouldn't expect them to touch flagships like the Galaxy Note and Galaxy S lines. If I had to guess, Samsung will likely do away with many of the low-end devices (and there are a lot that are very similar to each other) in hopes of boosting profits.
In related news, Samsung said it plans to make a heavy push in the area of flexible displays for smartphones.
Lee Chang-hoon, vice president of the business strategic team at Samsung Display, said they will secure production capacity of up to 40,000 flexible displays each month by the end of next year. The goal is to launch a smartphone with a display that can be folded in half - an idea that has been around for quite some time but thus far, nobody has figured out how to do it in a practical way.