Samsung announces earnings guidance for Q2 2017, could be its best ever quarterly profit

Samsung has announced its earnings guidance for the second quarter of 2017 (April-June), and things look extremely positive, especially after the company took a tumble in 2016 due to the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. The company’s consolidated sales stood at around KRW 60 trillion (approximately $53 billion) with an operating profit of around KRW 14 trillion (roughly $12.1 billion). This could mean that Samsung could post a higher quarterly profit than Apple for the first time, making it the most profitable company in the world. However, these numbers are just an estimate, and the actual numbers will be revealed in a few weeks.

This could be Samsung’s best ever quarterly profit. Compared to the previous quarter, the company’s sales increased by around 18%, and the operating profit rose by a whopping 41%. Analysts say that the numbers got a boost due to the well-received Galaxy S8 and S8+ as well as increased sales of memory chips, processors, and display panels. This means that the South Korean electronics giant will continue the record-breaking performance from last quarter. The company is further investing to improve sales of its memory and storage chips, processors, and OLED display panels. The chip business is predicted to be more than half of the operating profit.

(in trillion won)	2017. 2Q	2017. 1Q	2016. 2Q
Sales	60	50.55	50.94
Operating Profit	14	9.90	8.14

 

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Galaxy Note Fan Edition vs Galaxy Note 7: What’s new

Samsung confirmed earlier this year that it was going to release a refurbished variant of the Galaxy Note 7. It has millions of units gathering dust in warehouses because Samsung had to discontinue and recall the Galaxy Note 7 due to a battery defect. So why is the Galaxy Note 7 making a comeback?

Releasing a refurbished variant is one of the ways that Samsung will contain the environmental fallout from the recall. Instead of having to trash or recycle parts and components for all of those handsets, it can put them in circulation once again.

The company is also going to make money off of this, but that’s beside the point. The Galaxy Note Fan Edition was officially announced earlier this week. Samsung is going to sell it in South Korea initially starting tomorrow for roughly $610.

Let’s take a look at all that’s new with the Galaxy Note Fan Edition.

Battery

The battery was what caused the Galaxy Note 7’s downfall, so that’s the first major change that Samsung has made to this handset. Gone is the faulty 3,500mAh battery of the original Galaxy Note 7. The Galaxy Note FE features a smaller 3,200mAh battery.

It’s a safer option as it has gone through Samsung’s new 8-point battery safety test that the company came up with after the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco last year. Sure, customers will get slightly less battery capacity, but I think that’s a reasonable ask for the assurance of safety.

Processor

The Galaxy Note 7 had a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor which has four custom-made Kryo cores divided into clusters of two. The high-performance cluster is clocked at 2.15GHz whereas the power efficiency cluster is clocked at 1.6GHz.

Samsung has opted to put the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor inside the Galaxy Note FE. It has the same arrangement of Kryo cores, but the clusters are clocked at 2.4GHz and 2.0GHz respectively. This results in a 10 percent performance improvement compared to the predecessor.

Both the Snapdragon 820 and 821 have the same Adreno 540 graphics processor, but it offers a 5 percent gain in performance for the latter as it runs at 653MHz instead of 624MHz. Qualcomm has also said that the Snapdragon 821 is 5 percent more battery efficient than the previous chip.

Appearance

Yes, appearance, and not design. That’s because Samsung hasn’t made any changes to the design at all. It still looks and feels like the Galaxy Note 7 from last year. Subtle changes have been made to the appearance of the Galaxy Note FE, though.

The Galaxy Note FE is the first smartphone after the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ to not feature a Samsung logo underneath the earpiece, outside of Japan. The handset also carries the “Galaxy Note FE” branding on the bottom at the back to make it clear that this is a refurbished Galaxy Note 7.

User Interface

The Galaxy Note FE runs Android Nougat, but don’t expect to find the same user interface that we saw with the Galaxy Note 7 last year. The company is shipping it with the latest version of Samsung Experience which is what it calls its user interface now. This version debuted with the Galaxy S8 earlier this year and is also making its way to budget devices like the Galaxy J5 (2017).

Bixby

The Galaxy Note FE is also borrowing one of the Galaxy S8’s biggest features: Bixby. It doesn’t have a hardware button just for Bixby like the Galaxy S8, but it’s not like users are going to need it that much.

You see, Samsung isn’t bringing over the full Bixby experience to the Galaxy Note FE. The handset only gets Bixby Home and Reminders, not the assistant’s voice capabilities. So basically, Galaxy Note FE owners will have the same Bixby experience like Galaxy S8 owners outside South Korea have had so far.

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This is all that’s new with the Galaxy Note FE. It’s a good way for Samsung to get 400,000 units of the ill-fated flagship back into circulation once again. While it has only confirmed pricing and availability at this point in time, it’s possible that Samsung might release the Galaxy Note FE in other select markets at some point in the future.

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Samsung should make available all color and storage variants of a device from day one

The Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ were launched in India in March. However, only 64GB variants were launched, and they were only available in three colors. Two months later, the 128GB storage variant of the Galaxy S8+ with 6GB RAM was launched in the country. Now, the company has announced the availability of the Orchid Grey color variant of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ for the Indian market. A similar thing happened with the Galaxy S7 last year. Samsung announced Pearl Black and Pink Gold variants of the device, but only when the Galaxy Note 7 was recalled so that it could get some momentum going.

While Samsung has improved when it comes to launching various color variants across a wide range of markets, considering that it is the largest smartphone brand in the world and that it competes with Apple, it shouldn’t have a problem making all variants available from day one. Even if there are stock shortages of a particular color or storage variant in any market, it should at least announce that it plans to launch them at a later stage so that people who wish to buy those variants can wait.

Right now, there’s no official communication from Samsung regarding its plans, and this is cause for concern for anyone who purchases one of the initially available color or storage models just because the model they wanted wasn’t released. Samsung usually decides what colors will be launched based on what consumers in a country prefer, when it should instead be putting everything on the market and letting the consumer decide.

What do you think? Have you faced any such problems in buying Galaxy smartphones in your country?

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Themes Thursday: A whopping 425 new themes released; here are the best ones

We’re back with Themes Thursday, a weekly feature where we showcase the best new themes for Samsung smartphones. A whopping 425 new theme packs have been released in the Theme Store for Galaxy smartphones, and we’ve shortlisted a few themes that you might want to check out.

Out of the five themes that we’ve shortlisted, two can be installed for free, and they look good too. So, if you’re someone who’s downloading a theme pack on a Galaxy devices for the first time, you can know to which extent themes can change the look of the UI.

The Spicy-Noodles and Cute Raincoat themes have minimalistic designs. If you’re a surfer, you should check out the Surfing theme. All these themes don’t cost more than $2.5, so you’re getting good worth for your money. Which new themes did you like from this week?

[Kendi] Android O Black

[WoOS_Design] Spicy_Noodles (Live)

Cute Raincoat (AOD/Iris)

Sober

Surfing

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Daily Deal: Snag yourself a pair of Samsung’s Gear Icon X wireless earphones for 20% off

You can currently pick up a pair of Samsung’s Gear Icon X wireless earbuds, which not only sport 4GB of internal storage for independent music playback, but also bundle real-time voice feedback for workout progress, for $159.99 (20% off).

To take advantage of the promotion, press the Buy Now button below. It would probably be wise to hurry though, as we don’t know how much inventory Amazon set aside for the deal and once it’s gone… well, it’s gone.

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Galaxy A5 and A7 (2016) receive June security patch in India

If you own the Galaxy A5 (2016) or Galaxy A7 (2016) in India, then keep your eyes peeled for an update notification. Samsung has started rolling out the June security patch for the handsets in India. The changelog also mentions that the update includes a patch for a “critical security vulnerability.”

The update itself weighs just under 40MB which means that it doesn’t bring any new features for the devices. Not like they were expected, given that both devices are already running on Android 7.0 Nougat, which is the latest and greatest iteration of the Android operating system.

The security patch for the month of June 2017 features 96 fixes for Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) in the Android operating system aside from fixes for 23 vulnerabilities in Samsung’s software.

Since the latest firmware release brings updates to the security policy, users will not be able to downgrade to the old software once they’ve upgraded their device to this firmware version. Other than the security patches, the latest update also brings the usual overall device performance improvements as well.

The June security patch for the Galaxy A5 (2016) and Galaxy A7 (2016) is now being rolled out in India. Those who haven’t received an update notification already should expect to do so in the near future.

Thanks, Rahul!

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Samsung details contents of July security patch

Right on time, Samsung has taken to its Security Blog to reveal the contents of this month’s maintenance release, which addresses a total of 65 Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) in the Android operating system and 16 weaknesses in the firm’s Galaxy-branded smartphones and tablets.

As expected, the majority of the patches are listed as “privately disclosed” to prevent hackers from exploiting them before the firmware is rolled out to eligible devices. When exactly the upgrade will start making the rounds is unknown, though we expect it to arrive on some handsets as early as next week.

Stay tuned.

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