The smartphone market got a lot more competitive for
Apple
(
AAPL
) as rival Samsung unveiled its latest smartphone Galaxy
S4.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has a bigger screen than iPhone (5-inch
display versus 4-inch display) and with a screen resolution of
441 pixels/inch, Galaxy S4 scores over iPhone 5's 326
pixels/inch.
The Galaxy S4 is 69mm wide, 7.9mm thick and weighs 130 grams
and has a plastic body. However, iPhone is lighter with 112 grams
and is smaller and slimmer (58.6 mm width and 7.6 thick) and
comes with anodized aluminum covering. The Galaxy S4 runs on
Google
's (
GOOG
) latest Andriod 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.
Now coming to the processor part, the Galaxy S4 has two
versions with 1.6GHz Exynos octa core and Qualcomm quad core
1.9GHz, which are supposed to be faster than Apple's A6 Duo core
1.3GHz available in iPhone 5. Moreover, the latest version of the
Galaxy series features 2GB RAM for better processing speed
compared to iPhone's 1GB RAM.
The camera, both front and back-end camera, of the Galaxy S4
has been enhanced. The smartphone has a software-based camera
feature, which facilitates the working of both cameras at the
same time. Moreover, the phone records audio clips with still
photos. All this is done by a 13 megapixel ("MP") back-end camera
and 2 MP front end camera. Apple's iPhone 5 has 8 MP back-end and
1.2 MP front-end camera.
The battery capacity of the Galaxy S4 (2600 mAh) appears to be
higher that iPhone 5 (1400 mAh). However, there was no
confirmation from Samsung that it would lead to longer battery
life. The higher resolution, bigger screen size and other
features could be a factor for the higher-capacity battery.
The basic storage capabilities and wireless connectively
options are similar to iPhone 5. Both are available in 16GB, 32GB
and 64GB models and both support 4G LTE and HSPA+. But it is
noteworthy that the Galaxy S4 has an expandable memory of up to
64GB through a microSD card.
Comparatively, it seems that the Galaxy S4 has scored over
Apple's iPhone 5 in most smartphone features and we believe that
the pricing would also be made competitive. Moreover, the Galaxy
S4 looks more promising than the recently released high-end
smartphones from
Nokia
's (
NOK
) Lumia 920, Sony's Xperia Z and
Research In Motion
's (
BBRY
) BlackBerry Z10.
In 2012, Samsung emerged as the leader in the smartphone
market with 30.3% market share compared to Apple's 19.1%. It is
noteworthy that Samsung's market share had risen 129.1% from the
comparable previous year in contrast to a 46.9% increase in
Apple's market share during the same period of time.
We believe that significant share gains by Apple will prove to
be difficult given the stiff competition from Samsung in terms of
both the level of innovation and pricing of products. We
also believe that Apple's ability to innovate and grow in
developing nations, where the market is more cost-sensitive, will
determine the company's fortunes in the future.
Currently, Apple has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
APPLE INC (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report
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