三星真的要淪爲街角小店嗎?

It was in 2010 that Lee Kun-hee, chairman of the Samsung group, warned that South Korea’s most famous company risked becoming a “corner shop”. In fact, at the time of his premonition, Samsung Electronics, by far the most profitable company in the sprawling Samsung empire, was on the verge of a golden streak.

三星集團(Samsung)董事長李健熙(Lee Kun-hee)在2010年曾警告說，這家韓國最著名的企業面臨變成“街角小店”的風險。事實上，在他發出這一預警之際，三星電子(Samsung Electronics)——在龐大的三星集團內，最賺錢的就數三星電子——即將進入一段黃金時期。

It cemented its place as the world’s biggest technology company by sales, and as Asia’s most valuable brand, ahead of Japan’s Toyota, no less. It went on to become the first South Korean company to reach a market capitalisation of $200bn. Yet now, as 72-year-old Mr Lee lies gravely ill in a hospital bed following a heart attack, his paranoia looks almost prescient.

三星電子鞏固了其作爲銷量最高的科技公司的地位，還超越日本豐田(Toyota)，成爲亞洲最有價值的品牌。然後它又成爲第一家市值突破2000億美元的韓國企業。然而，當72歲的李健熙因突發心臟病住進醫院，重病在牀，他當初的多疑現在看起來頗具先見之明。

Samsung Electronics is certainly no corner shop. It continues to dominate the country’s corporate landscape to an uncomfortable degree. Yet its problems are manifold and its horizons darkening. Last month it reported third-quarter profits down 60 per cent as margins on smartphones withered. Now, as it prepares for life after Mr Lee, who will be succeeded by his son, Lee Jae-yong, there is talk of a wholesale revamp. As if to rub salt in the wound, the market capitalisation of arch-rival Apple, whose third-quarter results were as rosy as Samsung’s were funereal, this week touched $700bn, more than four times that of the South Korean company today.

三星電子當然不是街角小店，它在韓國企業界依然獨佔鰲頭，簡直叫人心裏不平。然而它也存在種種問題，前景日益黯淡。上個月三星電子公佈了第三季度財報，由於智能手機業務的利潤率萎縮，季度利潤同比下滑60%。眼下，隨着李健熙之子李在鎔(Lee Jae-yong)將接替他掌管這家公司，有傳言說三星電子要進行大調整。而三星電子主要競爭對手蘋果(Apple)的三季度業績頗爲亮眼，更映襯三星業績慘淡。蘋果的市值在本週觸及7000億美元，比這家韓國企業當前市值多出三倍有餘，無異於往三星的傷口上又撒了把鹽。

What has gone wrong? Paradoxically, most of Samsung’s problems are down to its smartphones, the product for which it has become world renowned.

三星電子出了什麼問題？自相矛盾的是，三星的問題多數都出在智能手機上，而其享譽全球也正是靠着智能手機。

At the premium end of the market, where handsets cost upwards of $500, its once-spirited challenge to Apple with its Galaxy smartphones has faded. The US company’s more stylish products command a higher premium and occupy an app-rich ecosystem that has proved far easier to turn into cash. Despite huge spending on marketing, Samsung has never managed to persuade consumers that its brand is as desirable as Apple’s. Nor is its generic Android operating system as easy to tailor as the proprietary iOS system. To top it all, Apple is now offering larger-screen phones, cancelling out Samsung’s biggest differentiating feature.

在售價高於500美元的高端手機市場，三星電子曾以Galaxy智能手機向蘋果發起挑戰，如今這股雄心已漸漸消失。蘋果公司的產品更爲時尚，定價也更高，而且這家美國企業還打造了一個擁有衆多應用程序的生態系統，現實證明該系統更容易創造收益。儘管三星在營銷上投入巨大，但從未成功說服消費者，讓他們像渴望蘋果那樣去渴望三星。其通用的安卓操作系統也不像蘋果自有的iOS系統那樣易於定製。雪上加霜的是，蘋果現在又提供大屏手機，這就抹掉了三星最大的差異化特徵。

At the cheaper end of the market, too, Samsung’s advantages are fast evaporating. A crop of Chinese companies based in the fiercely competitive Shenzhen cluster, including Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo and ZTE, is robbing Samsung of volume and pricing power. In the second quarter of 2013, Samsung accounted for more than 32 per cent of global smartphone sales, according to research company IDC. By the third quarter of this year, that had shrivelled to less than 24 per cent. “Samsung is being squeezed at both ends,” says Benedict Evans, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

在較低端市場，三星的競爭優勢也在迅速消失。華爲(Huawei)、小米(Xiaomi)、聯想(Lenovo)和中興(ZTE)等一批中國公司都在搶奪三星的市場份額和定價權。市場研究公司IDC的數據顯示，2013年二季度，三星智能手機出貨量佔全球的近三分之一；到今年三季度，這個數字已縮減爲不到24%。風險投資公司Andreessen Horowitz的合夥人班尼迪克•埃文斯(Benedict Evans)表示：“三星在高低端兩頭受敵。”

At home, Samsung finds itself under pressure of a different kind. Many South Koreans take great pride in the company’s achievements. There is, however, also resentment at the dominance of Samsung and other chaebol conglomerates, which are seen to have benefited from government largesse and to have prospered by squeezing the little guy. Official policy is slowly catching up with public anger. From next year, a tax on retained earnings is likely to come into force. Other measures will cajole big companies into distributing more of their profits in wages and dividends.

在國內，三星則面臨一種不同的壓力。許多韓國人對三星的成功感到非常自豪。然而，人們對三星和其他大企業所佔據的優勢地位也感到憤憤不平，覺得這些大企業受到了政府的照顧和扶持，是通過擠壓小企業的生存空間才興旺起來的。政府政策也在逐漸呼應民怨。從明年起，韓國政府將開徵一項留存收益稅，並將採取其他措施，引導大企業通過工資和分紅的方式將利潤更多地分配出去。

One might conclude Samsung’s best days are behind it. Certainly, the transition to the third generation of Lee family control will be testing. The group is in the process of an upheaval that some put down to an attempt by the family to reduce inheritance tax. That may be so, but spin-offs could also result in a simpler, more investor-friendly structure.

有人或許會認爲，三星的黃金時期已經過去。當然，管理權向李氏家族第三代的過渡將是一次考驗。該集團正在經歷一場劇變，一些人將這場劇變歸結爲李氏家族試圖減少遺傳稅的努力。這麼說或許沒錯，但拆分業務也可能造就一種更簡明、更有利於投資者的公司結構。

On the operational front, the position may not be quite as grim as it appears. The company has culled its smartphone range, a strategy that should bring economies of scale as well as simplification. Samsung makes more than 320m smartphones a year and has a market share nearly five times that of Xiaomi, its nearest Chinese rival. That means it ought to be able to go head-to-head on price, particularly as it steps up its big manufacturing operations in low-cost Vietnam.

在運營方面，形勢或許並不像表面看上去的那麼嚴峻。三星已經削減了旗下智能手機的種類，這一策略應該會帶來規模優勢和簡化效應。三星智能手機的年產量超過3.2億部，市場份額比最接近自己的中國競爭對手小米大了近4倍。這意味着三星應該打得起價格戰，特別是它已在成本較低的越南進一步擴大了生產規模。

Mark Newman, an analyst at Bernstein Research, says the worst could even be over for Samsung’s handset business. He predicts the massive semiconductor division is entering a golden era of its own. According to his reckoning, it is worth paying current depressed prices for Samsung shares for access to the semiconductor business alone. If he is right, that would mean the market has marked down the smartphone business to zero, surely an overreaction. Even the corner shop of Mr Lee’s nightmares is worth more than that.

伯恩斯坦(Bernstein Research)的分析師馬克•紐曼(Mark Newman)表示，三星手機業務最壞的時候也有可能已經過去。據他預測，三星龐大的半導體業務部即將迎來屬於它自己的黃金時代。在他看來，即便只看其半導體業務，也值得趁眼下股價低迷之際入手三星股票。如果他的看法是對的，那就說明市場已經嚴重低估了三星智能手機業務的價值。即便李健熙噩夢成真、三星真的淪爲了一家街角小商店，它的價值也不只這麼點兒。