Samsung sheds $8bn off its market valuation; investors worry that its growth is coming to an end

Samsung's first day of the new year on the stock exchange is unlikely to have been as glorious as the top execs had hoped for when celebrating 2014 – the company shed about 4.6% off its market valuation after a poor start in the morning that set the tone for the entire trading day. That's the equivalent of $8 billion.

Now, while finances are a bit remote of an area from our usual field of expertise, industry watchers do have a few things to say about why Samsung isn't doing quite so well. First and perhaps foremost, the higher-end niche of the market has reached saturation – an argument we've seen being brought up repeatedly throughout 2013. This obviously means that the South Korean company simply no longer has access to as vast a pool of potential adopters of its more premium offerings, the ones that usually carry the highest margins. Along the same lines is the argument that price competition from the now many rivals worldwide is putting more and more pressure on Sammy. One could even see how said pressure has been enough to force the Seoul-based company to follow suit, as its vast brand cache gets at least partially disarmed when confronted with customers that are simply looking for the greatest deal available. This is especially true in regions with easy access to the Nexus line of devices, and now the Motorola Moto X and Moto G, all of which offer an arguably equal, even higher bang for your buck, unless you're completely sold on a particular Samsung phone or feature. It's therefore not too surprising to see that at least some people are worrying over their investment. Despite this rather gloomy-sounding analysts' repertoire, Q1 is actually shaping up to be quite a product-rich quarter for Samsung, with as many as four new tablets expected to see the light of day, and perhaps even the next-in-line Galaxy S5 and a new, less costly version of the Galaxy Note 3.

via: TechCrunch, Reuters