Samsung slashes 2014 smartphone sales expectations even further

If you need any more proof that the volatile, competitive smartphone market doesn’t play favorites, take a glance at Samsung’s smartphone expectations for next year. ETNews reports that Samsung has lowered its projections from 360 million unit shipments down to 330 million, the second major reported cut for the South Korean company in the past two months. What was originally expected to be a year of at least 25% growth for Samsung’s handset business has now been whittled down to just 14%. The report also says that this is an internal downgrade and that “the issue is not fixed yet,” but it isn’t unexpected — Samsung is focused on finding new product categories that might help offset the inevitable slowdown in smartphone sales.