Samsung Smartphone Shipments Decreasing: Galaxy S20 Doesn’t Sell Well

As the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic severely affected consumer demand, South Korea’s latest flagship series of Galaxy S20 smartphones did not sell as well as previously launched flagship products.

According to Yonhap News, data from operators show that the Galaxy S20 series of smartphones in South Korea has only reached 60% of the sales of the Galaxy S10 5G series. By the way, Samsung has not yet announced specific figures. It is expected that the sales of Galaxy S20 series smartphones will be about 80% of the Galaxy S10 5G series.

Another analysis predicts that Samsung’s smartphone shipments in the first quarter of this year maybe only 60 million units, compared with 72 million units in the same period last year.

Taking into account the negative impact of the epidemic, Samsung expects that the operating profit of the IT and mobile communications departments to which the smartphone business belongs to in the first quarter will be approximately 2.5 trillion won ($2.06 billion) or less. Since the second half of last year, Samsung’s operating profit has been on a downward trend. In the third quarter of last year, Samsung’s operating profit for this division was 2.9 trillion won (approximately $2.38 billion). And in the fourth quarter, it was 2.5 trillion won ($ 2.06 billion).

At the beginning of the month, Samsung expected operating profit for the first quarter of this year to be 6.4 trillion won (about $5.26 billion), an increase of 2.73% year-on-year. Samsung’s first-quarter results will be announced at the end of the month.

How Is Samsung Going To Save The Situation?

Under the impact of the epidemic, Samsung is also trying to help stimulate the growth of smartphone sales through a number of measures. Samsung hopes to become the leader of the new generation of the 5G smartphone market. Earlier this month, Samsung’s new Galaxy A71 5G and Galaxy A51 5G smartphones were unveiled. They showed that Samsung is working hard to expand its lineup of phones that support 5G. The two phones will be first listed in South Korea before May. Their price will be between 400,000 won (about $329) and 500,000 won (about $411).

Samsung also hopes to help boost smartphone sales through a new generation of lower-priced products. The Galaxy S20 series smartphones are relatively expensive, with a starting price of about $1,000.

According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung’s share of the global 5G smartphone market last year was 35.8%. Also, the 5G smartphone shipments were 6.7 million units. This is only slightly behind Huawei in China. Huawei shipped 6.9 million units, with a market share of 36.9%.

Also Read: Strategy Analytics: Chinese Users Postpone Buying New Phones

As consumers’ behavior is affected by the epidemic, global smartphone sales have suffered a decline. Strategy Analytics has recently reduced its global smartphone shipments prediction to 1 billion units. Previously, they have been thinking it will be 1.3 billion units.