Tech conferences may be the place where tech giants go to show off their new tinkering toys and bring feuds home but it is the Wall Street that proves their true mettle on the ground. Handing them a report card every now and then or sometimes giving them a quick reality check on where they actually stand in the reality and not in some augmented AR or game simulation.
Apple and Samsung have been loggerheads for a pretty long time. Each of them vying for the extra edge they can get or showing each other their places but the recent report card is out and there can only be one winner. As Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White, puts it in his report to clients, "Apple has Samsung on the ropes like never before in recent memory."
According to White, there are four factors which will be responsible for driving Apple's growth over Samsung or any other company for that matter this year.
Samsung's fall out already started with the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco last year, following which the South Korean smartphone makers were dropped out from the Fortune's top 50 most admired companies, while Apple secured a smooth number one position in that same list.
Note 7 disaster has been a warning bell not only to the Samsung but all across the tech world on how things might come to bite you on the back, once you have really gone overboard. Though there might be redemption at hand with the Galaxy S8 for the company, with the tech firm's Vice Chairman currently doubling up as a jail bird chances this strategy might also fail.
Apple was quick to learn from this debacle and they are mulling over dropping the wireless charging system from iPhone 8, even after working two years on the system. Moreover, the company is riding high on the success of their Iphone 7 and Iphone 7 plus and the buzz around is that the company will soon release its latest Iphone 8. The product has already been hyped up with all the rumours that have been going around and it is sure that the new handset will be going to be one sweet piece of tech that everyone will want to own.
Further Samsung is only expected to unveil Galaxt Tab S3 at the Mobile World Congress and rumours are suggesting a rather late release of their flagship Galaxy S8 on or around 21 April. This delay would give Samsung a much lesser time with a fresh smartphone in the market before the next iPhone arrives, as the iPhone X is supposed to make its debut in September.
As White says, all these bad news for Samsung is in contrast to high expectations for Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone release with the largest user base Apple ever had.
It's possible we've already started to see this trend begin. Data from Gartner for Q4 2016 (Apple's Q1 2017) showed Apple clinch 17.9 per cent of worldwide smartphone sales compared to Samsung with 17.8 per cent. As far as units, this turned out to be 77 million iPhones compared to 76.7 million Samsung smartphones.
