Samsung Electronics has set a goal to have 1 million Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus preordered and this amount will be more than double the amount of sales volume (400,000) of Galaxy Note 7 that recorded its highest sales volume. This is Samsung Electronics’ confidence in that it is going to recover its image that was lost due to Galaxy Note 7 and record Samsung Electronics’ Smartphone’s biggest sales volume.
“Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus have the highest safety and quality out of Galaxy series that was introduced until now.” said Department Head (President) Ko Dong-jin of Samsung Electronics Wireless Business Department. “Rate of preorder of Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus is definitely better than their previous models and all of our executives and employees have set a goal to have 1 million Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus preordered just in South Korea.”
Preorder for Galaxy S8 series started on the 7th through mobile network providers and mobile virtual network providers and 728,000 phones were preordered for 6 days. On average, more than 100,000 phones were preordered per day and Samsung Electronics predicts that its goal will be easily achieved at this rate by the 17th when preorder ends. This is a ‘march of new records’ that is replacing every record that Samsung Electronics had set before.
Galaxy S8 series will be released first in South Korea, the U.S., and Canada on the 21st. At the time when Galaxy S8 series is released, people will be able to use 80% of functions of Bixby, which is an artificial intelligence (AI) voice assistant. Starting from the first day of May, people will be able to use complete Korean version of Bixby. Release of Galaxy S8 series in Chinese markets is also made according to start of ‘Bixby’ service because Samsung Electronics wants to look for breakthroughs in Chinese Smartphone markets, which are owned by Chinese manufacturers now, with its own competitive edge in Smartphones.
“We are going to release Galaxy S8 in China sometime during middle of May and Chinese version of Bixby will be ready by June.” said President Ko. “Chinese market is a market that we cannot give up on. Even if it takes time, we are definitely going to retrieve results that we had made in 2013.”
Samsung Electronics is going to release Galaxy S8 Plus that has 6GB RAM and 128GB internal memory only in South Korean and Chinese markets in order to meet demands from South Korean and Chinese consumers who want products with high specifications.
“Although increasing memory capacity is not technically difficult, we had had a lot of things to think about such as managing inventories since we are adding a new model.” said President Ko. “In spite of that, we have decided to release such a model in order to meet demands from South Korean and Chinese consumers who want the best product with best specifications.”
Samsung Electronics is going to use ‘dual-edge (curved) displays’ for its future flagship Smartphones such as Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. It has decided not to use flat displays anymore and this indicates that it has resolved stability issues of supply of dual-edge displays.
However it has yet to decide whether or not it is going to apply dual-edge design on Galaxy A series, which is in the middle of lineup of Smartphones and costs about $441 (500,000 KRW). It is not going to apply dual-edge design on Galaxy J and Galaxy On products that cost under $265 (300,000 KRW).
“Although we had received requests from consumers in foreign countries to apply dual-edge displays to models with small screens starting from three months before Galaxy S7 was released last year, we had faced difficulty due to low production yield.” said President Ko. “Although production yield did not rise to a level where we are satisfied even until three months ago, we were able to completely overcome this problem due to continuous efforts and work that were done by our executives and employees.”
“We are planning to make dual-edge display as the identity of our flagship Smartphones.” said President Ko. “Because we dismantled and examined 100,000 Galaxy S8 series before they are released, as a person in charge I can confidently say that Galaxy S8 series will be safer than any other products.”
Staff Reporter Choi, Jaepil | jpchoi@etnews.com