Product Decision #9: How Samsung Decided On Key Tradeoffs For Their Galaxy Phones

This is #9 in a collection of posts highlighting decisions made in tech to build and grow products.

Product Decision

On the eve of launching S7, Samsung’s VP of Smartphone Planning Kim Gae-youn reflected on the tradeoffs he had to make to ship the S6 and its latest flagship phone S7. Hardware products require rigid constraints on what will ship and what will not, and Kim decided that features such as waterproofing, microSD slots, and removable batteries needed to be cut from the scope of the S6 launch. He balanced three factors to make that decision: cost, time to launch, and market needs.

Details

On the idea of adding features like waterproofing and microSD slots, Kim Gae-youn said:

It takes time, right? So we at Samsung scrutinize what’s the real need for the consumer, so we understand the market and the consumer needs. And we have an end goal, but it takes time. So the S6 was our first time to apply the glass and metal materials for a smartphone design, and we tried to incorporate all that the customer needs, but there was a time limit so we prioritized which features went to the S6 and then we adopted other customer needs for the S7. So it’s a matured product.

On the idea of adding removable batteries:

Not impossible — everything’s possible. It’s just cost issues and tradeoffs. So if we applied a replaceable battery then the thickness of the device is higher, and it’s wider, and there’s a robustness issue for replaceable batteries, with the metal and glass design. We can solve that! But it costs a lot.

Have you ever faced a similar situation at your company? If so, share your results in the comments.