At the top of the month we reported that "On September 21 we posted a report titled "Things Look Gloomy Again for Samsung as Korean Analysts Cut Q3 Estimates." With analysts continually cutting expectations for Samsung, the company may be able to squeak out a nice make-believe recovery for Q3 if you haven't been following the downgrade cycle. In fact, Reuters noted in a recent report that "The world's largest handset maker is forecast on Wednesday to guide for its first annual increase in quarterly profit in two years following a dismal third quarter in 2014, but profits and mobile margins are expected to contract on a sequential basis." Yes, after so many downgrades, it will look like a real rebound is in play when it's not.

Today Samsung reported a profit mainly from components like chips that remain their number one profit maker. They also announced a share buyback plan worth $10 billion that will excite Wall Street. However, clearly presented in Samsung's earning report they stated the following; "Strong shipment growth Quarter over Quarter led by the launch of new models; Slight increase in revenue while profitability declined due to S6 price adjustment and product mix change." So, on the smartphone front, it was yet another bad quarter for Samsung despite what they may have stated during their conference call to make it sound better. And remember, analysts were continually cutting estimates over the quarter to make hitting their numbers easier.

Surprisingly no numbers were given for how many of their flagship smartphones were sold in the quarter so that we could honestly compare them to Apple's 48 million iPhones sold. Suffice to say that Apple crushed Samsung on smartphone profits as always. Samsung's "strong shipment growth" only translated to 6% while Apple's grew 22% according to IDC's latest report published yesterday.

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