Samsung looks to get a head start on Apple with its next jumbo smartphone

Samsung will show
off its newest jumbo smartphones, including a likely
follow-up to last year's Galaxy Note Edge, during an
event in New York.
Samsung hopes to get the jump on Apple. But will it be
enough?
On Thursday, Samsung will host its second Unpacked
event of the year to introduce its newest phablets, the
jumbo-sized hybrids between smartphones and tablets.
The company is expected to release the Galaxy Note 5,
which will include a metal back instead of plastic and an
improved stylus, as well as the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus,
which is believed to have a 5.7-inch screen that curves
over the sides of the device.
Samsung has traditionally unveiled its latest marquee
phablet smartphone at the Berlin-based IFA electronics
trade show in early September. But this time around, it
moved the date up by a couple weeks and shifted its
event to New York in what some believe is an attempt to
get an even earlier jump on Apple's next iPhone
introduction -- which likely will take place in early
September.
The bigger screen iPhone "creates pressure on Samsung
to get out there earlier than it would have done to
stimulate sales overall," said Jackdaw Research chief
analyst Jan Dawson. It's "a way of saying, if you're ready
for an upgrade, here's a device."
The move speaks to the root of Samsung's troubles: It's
no longer the only game in town when it comes to big-
screen smartphones, and it now faces stiff competition
in a market that has never sold in huge volumes.
Consumers aren't willing to pay the premium prices
Samsung's asking when there are many similar, cheaper
Android devices available. Add to that the general
malaise in the smartphone market, and Samsung has a
problem.
The company didn't respond to a request for comment.
For the first time ever, Samsung's Note line is launching
with a bigger screen iPhone -- the 5.5-inch 6 Plus --
already on the market and its follow-up -- likely called
the iPhone 6S Plus -- coming soon. Last year's Galaxy
Note 4 had a short run as the sole high-profile phablet
smartphone, even if the iPhone 6 Plus was one of the
worst-kept secrets in technology.
But a two-week lead -- or even a month, depending on
when the devices go on sale -- likely won't be enough
to turn things around for Samsung. Apple is reportedly
set to hold its own iPhone event on September 9.
The South Korean company has reported seven straight
quarters of declining profits, and it's cutting prices on
its three-month-old Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge
devices to boost sales. Its smartphone market share has
tumbled over the past year -- from controlling about a
third of the sector with the Galaxy S3 and S4 in 2012 and
2013, to sharing the title of No. 1 smartphone vendor
with Apple in the fourth quarter of 2014. Both companies
controlled about a fifth of the market in that period, the
first full quarter of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales, according
to Gartner.
Samsung created the phablet market with its 5.3-inch
Galaxy Note in 2011. Though the device initially was
mocked for its large, almost comical display, the bigger
screen size gradually attracted consumers. Carriers liked
it because the Note tended to attract more affluent
power users who preferred to spend their time staring at
a larger screen.
By the time Samsung released the Note 3 in 2013,
phablets had plenty of fans, including among other
device makers who released their own big-screen
phones. With that in mind, Samsung last year unveiled
two phablets, the Note 4 and its first smartphone with a
display that curved around the side, the Galaxy Note
Edge.
But Apple's new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus took away the one
big advantage Samsung had -- bigger screens. For
Apple, that has turned out to be a goldmine. In the June
quarter, it sold 47.5 million iPhones, up 35 percent from
the previous year.