In a three- to four-page paper (not including the title and reference pages)

Samsung’s New Challenge: Rising Component Costs

[WLOs 1, 2, 3, 4] [CLOs: 2, 3 6]

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, read The Wall Street Journal article Samsung’s New Challenge: Rising Component Costs, and the Business Insider article Samsung Introduced 10 Times as Many Phones as Apple Last Year, but Its Mobile Division Made Half as Much Revenue (Links to an external site.).

In a three- to four-page paper (not including the title and reference pages) assess how Samsung’s technological smartphone innovation accounts for the company’s sales growth of mobile devices worldwide.

In your paper, determine whether Samsung could benefit by implementing a global product line-up strategy to pursue profitability. To make the determination go to Samsung’s.com official website and locate the “Investor Relations” link to retrieve Samsung’s financial statements. Utilize the SEC filings and annual reports to summarize Samsung’s principal goods and services, market share, geographic locations where it operates, and major competitors.

Samsung is a leading smartphone vendor worldwide. In 2017, Samsung’s market share of the global smartphone market was at around 21.6% with Apple as its closest competitor in the market. As the world’s biggest smartphone maker, Samsung tries to keep profits up in its mainstay mobile phone business, but the rising costs of the components that go into its devices proves to be a challenge.

In your paper,

• Assess whether Samsung could benefit by using Activity Based Costing (ABC). Your evaluation should include
  • factor(s) that influenced your decision,
  • the ramifications of implementing ABC in the Global smartphone market, and
  • how you would structure the distribution of costs using ABC for Samsung.
• Assess whether Samsung could benefit by using a standard cost system. Your evaluation should include
  • the factor(s) that influenced your decision,
  • the ramifications of costs, quantity, and variances, and
  • the ramifications of using standard costs in the global smartphone market.
• Explain how Samsung could benefit by product pricing in terms of cost-plus concepts. This explanation should include
  • Samsung’s future plans, such as, expansion, consolidation, and downsizing, and
  • how costs concepts could be used in the decision making.

The Samsung’s New Challenge: Rising Component Costs Final Paper

• Must be three to five double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style resource (Links to an external site.).
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted
• For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.).
• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an Introduction and Conclusion paragraph. In the introduction paragraph indicate the purpose of your paper and provide an overview of the research design used. Introduce the various topics that will be addressed in the research paper. Identify the method(s) that will be used to collect the data for the topics and how that data will be evaluated.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.
• Must add an APA heading (Level 1 or Level 2) for each one of the topics discussed in the research paper as shown:
  • Introduction (APA Level 1)
  • Samsung’s Principle Goods and Services (APA Level 1)
  • Global Market Share (APA Level 1)
  • Geographic Locations (APA Level 1)
  • Major Competitors (APA Level 1)
  • Activity Based Costing (ABC) (APA Level 1)
  • Production Costs of Cellphones (APA Level 2)
  • Samsung’s New Challenge: Cellphones Rising Component Costs (APA Level 2)
  • Standard Cost System (APA Level 1)
  • Cost-Plus Concepts (APA Level 1)
  • Samsung’s Future Plans (APA Level 1)

Use the following APA Style blog to read about the APA Five Levels of Headings (Links to an external site.)

• Must use at least five scholarly and/or credible articles from ProQuest Business, industry databases Nasdaq.com and EY.com, and comprehensive accounting databases FASB codification, AICPA, and SEC reference library sources in addition to the course text.
  • The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper guide. (Links to an external site.)

Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.