Samsung Android Phones 2015 News: Company to Cut Production of Smartphone Models by Up to a Third in 2015

South Korean tech giant Samsung is cutting production of selected smartphone models in 2015 amid stiff competition from China.

This was confirmed by Robert Yi, Samsung's head of investor relations, during a recent New York presentation.

The reduction in the number of released smartphone models could be a wise business strategy. Samsung has experienced a decline in profitability in its third quarter net profit, a drop of almost 50 percent. While the occasional ups and downs in business are to be expected, it does not look good if a profit decline is preceded by another decline. Prior to its 50 percent reduced profit, Samsung also experienced a 20 percent decline in its second quarter net profits.

In order to address the situation, as well as to be more competitive with the brands and models coming out of China, Samsung has decided to drop several models that are expensive to produce and are therefore also more expensively priced in the market. Instead, Samsung's focus will be on the continued, and even increased, production of models that are cheaper to manufacture, and as such, are more affordable.

The tactic is meant to reduce the hold of the Chinese on the handset market.

Samsung's Galaxy S smartphone models used to be a champion profit-bringer to the company, but sales to the high-end market went down because of the tightly competitive and newer iPhone 6 by Apple.

At the same time, Samsung is now also being strongly challenged in the mid to lower priced smartphone market because of more aggressive marketing and inexpensive prices offered by brands Lenovo, Xiaomi, and Huawei, all from China.