new and emerging markets
"Samsung has had a very high-growth, very large-scale business over the past few years," Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson said. "But there isn't much evidence that suggests they'll have a future that looks like their past.
The company also will have to figure out how much it's going to push with its own software efforts. Samsung has made a big investment in software, hiring hundreds of new engineers and even starting entirely new operations, such as its Media Solutions Center division. Most of the efforts have fallen flat with consumers. But in a market where hardware isn't enough to set its devices apart from others, software will become more important.
No matter what, 2015 is going to be a tough year for Samsung.
Most of all, Samsung will spend next year figuring out just what it needs to do to avoid becoming the next Nokia or BlackBerry.
"I don't believe they know what they want to be," Kantar Worldpanel analyst Carolina Milanesi said. "But they have to figure out how to be in a market where hardware continues to be commoditized.