Samsung realized that they needed to go in a different direction "design wise" , their mobile division was starting to take a major hit
They took a pretty big hit last quarter.
I haven't seen an analysis, but I think two things are happening in mobile to really dent sales:
1) the premium market is now fully saturated and sales are probably starting to track user upgrade cycles
2) users are waiting longer to upgrade because the newer phones just don't perform that much better than phones out in the past 1-2 years
Also saw Apple makes profits hand-over-fist but Android really struggles. This is because Android OEM's still haven't figured out how much money they're wasting on R&D and marketing for too many models. The other key to the Apple model is they just continue longer production runs and fill the mid-tier market with older models while the dumb Android OEM's try to develop phones specifically for that market. The Apple model is just far more efficient, and therefore much more profitable, from top to bottom.
If I was Sammie, for example,
1) I'd be selling the S4 to the lower market with production and component costs coming down on that. I'd sell the S5 to the mid-tier, and the S6 to the premium market. With the launch of the S6 I'd be running a clearance sale on the S3, possibly mostly into developing markets.
2) I would release, at most, 4 display sizes on 2-year cycles. Then the S version launches every other year, with the mini version launching in between. At this point, I'd almost go with just the S, Note and mini on 3-yr cycles. If you're keeping score at home, by the time that phone makes its way from the premium market to the low-tier developing market we're talking 5-6 years.
I mean, I've seen "mid-tier" phones launch recently with trivially different specs from the HTC Rezound, which is over 3 years old. That approach HAS to siphon-off profits from the bottom line.