Samsung (005930) made good on an impossible promise and the world’s top smartphone vendor is now seeing the hype surrounding its mobile products reach colossal levels. While this is great for Samsung in the near term, one industry watcher believes it may also be clouding management’s judgement as the company stretches itself “too far, too fast.”
Forbes contributor Haydn Shaughnessy recently penned a piece that takes a closer look at Samsung’s mobile product roadmap and draws attention to just how crazy its pace really is. Samsung has always been a company that launches a wide variety of devices spanning various sizes and price ranges, but Shaughnessy thinks Samsung’s roadmap for the coming months is a bit too ambitious.
“Whether you are a fan of Samsung or not think about this from a product portfolio standpoint,” he wrote. “This is an incredible pace – even if you say it is not all about innovation, it still needs managing. Deep inside the organization someone has to oversee the supply chain, the marketing, the launch program, the competitive positioning against Apple.
“And dare I say that is where Samsung is looking frail.”
Among the upcoming launches Shaughnessy lists are the Galaxy S4, the Galaxy Note 8.0, the Galaxy Tab 3, the Galaxy Mega 5.8, the Galaxy Mega 6.3, the Galaxy Star, the Galaxy Pocket Neo and the Galaxy Win.
“In addition there are variants on the tablet products (connectivity and storage),” Shaughnessy notes. “Even without those variants that means 8 major product launches in one quarter. And by the way they are also launching new TVs.”
