Winners and losers from the Samsung Note7 debacle
The business world is a cruel one. For every big success, there's almost always some other poor company on the other end losing customers and/or money.
And for every big debacle, there are companies in position to take advantage.
Such is the case with the Samsung Galaxy Note7. Let's walk through who's up and who's down now that the smoke has cleared:
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Winners
Apple
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. It's best to be both.
Apple stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries from Samsung's Note7 disaster.
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The two companies have been competing for the high-end smartphone market, with some of Samsung's most recent Galaxy phones rivaling the iPhone.
Now, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus could become the go-to for people turning away from Samsung. Angelo Zino, analyst for S&P Capital IQ, wrote that Apple could sell an extra 15 million iPhones due to the Note7 fiasco.
That's particularly helpful for Apple considering the low expectations that have been set for the company's second half of 2016, due in part to a tepid response to the iPhone 7.
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There's a downside for Google to this Note7 fiasco, but plenty of reason for Google to be quietly happy about this development.
Google's recent introduction of its Pixel smartphones has set the company on a collision course with its many partners, Samsung included.
Now, with Samsung suddenly looking tarnished, Google's new hardware is in a great position ahead of the upcoming holiday season to become the standard-bearer for Android users.
This win for Google hardware is offset by a loss for its software, but more on that in a minute.
Sony, LG and Huawei
Just about every other manufacturer of high- or highish-end smartphones will be in line for a "Samsung bump" as consumers look elsewhere for their Android fix.
Amazon
Amazon is no longer alone in the "gigantic embarrassing smartphone failure" category. Amazon's own attempt at a smartphone -- the Fire (seriously) -- was a flop that cost the company around $140 million.
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Losers
Samsung
The world's leader in smartphone sales, Samsung has a gigantic business that will be fine for quite a while.
But the Note7 debacle definitely hurts.
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"It's a body blow for Samsung, but something it can recover from," said Neil Mawston, head of the global wireless division at Strategy Analytics.
For a smaller company, the Note7 problem would be catastrophic. Initial loses were pegged at around $5 billion, but an analysis interviewed by Reuters found the broader losses could hit $17 billion.
Samsung sold almost 325 million smartphones in 2015. The Note7 would certainly have been a chunk of its 2016 and 2017 totals (around 3 million had been shipped before the recall), but far from the company's entire smartphone business.
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There's some expectation that the Note7 issue will be a problem for the Samsung brand in general, with consumers avoiding its entire line of phones.
Mawston noted that there are ways to counter that problem.
"I think as long as Samsung comes back with better products, possibly some price cuts or discounts on select models and strong marketing ... it should be able to retain its global leadership on smartphones," he said.
Yes, the Samsung situation does open the door for Google's own smartphone ambitions. In the near-term, however, Google stands to lose ground.
As noted above, Samsung users could end up switching to Apple. That means customers that were on Google's Android mobile operating system are heading over to Apple's iOS.
This means lost revenue for Google. While Android revenues aren't made public, they were divulged in a court case in early 2016. A lawyer claimed that Google had made $31 billion in revenue since Google launched Android in 2008.
Fewer people on Android means less money for Google.
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Android users
Sorry y'all. What was almost inarguably the best Android-based smartphone is no longer on the market.
On the upside, you have plenty of choices. Just get ready for lots of condescending comments like, "Oh yeah, that LG looks real nice," from your iPhone-wielding friends.
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
