14 DAY TRIAL // South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics has seen strong initial demand for the Galaxy S5, its latest flagship Android-based device, and the company is optimistic about the handset’s future, it seems.
According to a recent article on The Korea Times, Samsung insiders have already unveiled that the company is looking at around 35 million units shipped in the first three months of availability.
Said sources have also unveiled that Samsung has managed to ship around 63 million Galaxy S4 units so far, though only 40 million devices have actually been sold.
As mentioned above, initial sales of the new flagship were high, supposedly 1.3 times higher than those of Galaxy S4 last year.
This applies only to first-day sales, it seems. Galaxy S5 went up for purchase in 125 countries around the world on April 11, and should reach some more of them in the not too distant future.
“Samsung’s smartphone business has been faring well since the introduction of the first Galaxy mobile phone,” a senior Samsung executive reportedly said.
“The S5 will be a major turning point for Samsung’s mobile business. That’s why Shin Jong-kyun, the company’s mobile chief himself, checks sales figures and stock movements.”
However, the company hasn’t provided an official statement on sales expectations for the device as of now, it seems.
Previous reports suggested that first-day demand for Galaxy S5 was actually two times higher than that for Galaxy S4 last year in some markets in Europe.
This suggests that the South Korean vendor might indeed manage to ship a record number of handsets, even if it hasn't commented on the matter yet.
“We believe the mobile phone division performed better than our previous estimates on the back of the strong smartphone and tablet results ― higher units and higher margin ― due to lower marketing spending,” Mark C. Newman, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research in Hong Kong, said.
According to another Samsung executive, strong Galaxy S5 sales should help the company in its patent dispute with Apple.
Samsung claims that the popularity of its devices comes from the consumers’ choices toward the better hardware and specifications of Galaxy smartphones, and great sales of Galaxy S5 should help it prove that, another analyst claims.
Galaxy S5 arrives on shelves with a 5.1-inch touchscreen display, a 2.5GHz quad-core processor inside, 2GB of RAM, and a 16-megapixel camera on the back, with 4K video recording capabilities. It runs under the Android 4.4.2 KItKat operating system.