Now that Samsung has discontinued the Galaxy Note 7, the company might hope the worst is behind it. But new data points suggests it’ll only get worse.
Samsung will ship 310 million smartphones this year, down from a forecast of 316 million units, according to new data from research firm TrendForce. Customers will, in turn, move in part to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, which will see its forecast shipments grow from 205 million to 208 million due in part to the Galaxy Note 7’s woes, according to TrendForce.
“In the large-size smartphone market, Samsung’s competitors such as Apple, Huawei, Vivo, and OPPO are expected to snatch up the demand that was initially going to Note 7,” TrendForce said.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. TrendForce estimates that Samsung was going to produce 10 to 12 million Galaxy Note 7 units this year. Now that it’s discontinued the smartphone and won’t come close to that figure (TrendForce believes four million units shipped so far and now all will be scrapped), Samsung stands to miss out on billions of dollars in lost revenue alone.
“In the long run, the fallout from the Note 7 incident will have a significant impact on Samsung’s overall bottom line,” TrendForce said in a statement.
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The TrendForce data might even be on the bearish side, some analysts say. In fact, analysts at Credit Suisse told Reuters on Tuesday that Samsung could have tallied sales of up to 19 million units on the Galaxy Note 7, which would have generated for the company about $17 billion in revenue. After the smartphone’s first recall, analysts had expected Samsung to fix the problem and take a $5 billion cost in missed sales and recall-related expenses.
Samsung on Tuesday announced that it has officially stopped all production on the Galaxy Note 7 after several reports cropped up in recent days of its replacement Galaxy Note 7 units exploding. Samsung’s first-run of Galaxy Note 7 units were overheating and causing batteries to explode. In response, the company issued a global recall and said its second slate of devices would be safe. Now, after a rash of recent explosions, it’s clear they’re not.
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“For the benefit of consumers’ safety, we stopped sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note 7 and have consequently decided to stop production,” a Samsung spokesperson told Coins2Day in a statement on Tuesday. Samsung, which also faces the prospect of expensive lawsuits related to the exploding Galaxy Note 7, has not said exactly how much it might lose.
Regardless, Samsung shareholders seem concerned: the company’s shares on Tuesday closed at 1,545,000 won, shaving off approximately $18 billion in value since Monday, according to Thomson Reuters.
And the bloodletting has only just begun.