Shin Jong Kyun, Chief of Mobile for Samsung, announced today that the company has received some encouraging signs after the unveiling of the new Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge devices at Mobile World Congress. The smartphones received initial praise from tech journalists at the event, and the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge ended up becoming the top trending topics on most social media platforms. Apparently those early accolades have generated massive orders for the new devices.
According to Kyun, Samsung has already received pre-orders of 15 million Galaxy S6 and another 5 million Galaxy S6 Edge devices. If these numbers prove to be accurate, initial sales of the Galaxy S6 will surpass both the Galaxy S5 and the Galaxy S4—which was a highly acclaimed success in its own right. With 20 million devices already pre-ordered Samsung should be able to turn the tide on the horrendous year it had in 2014. Profits plummeted 60 percent for Samsung last year—and Samsung makes virtually all of the profit for Android smartphones so a bad year for Samsung is also a bad year for Android.
There are a couple potential pitfalls still. First of all, these numbers may be inaccurate or completely fabricated. As Ewan Spence notes in an article on Forbes, the data isn’t an official accounting from Samsung. The information is attributed to a “top executive at a leading mobile carrier in Europe.”
The other issue is the fact that nobody has actually bought a Samsung Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge yet. These are carrier pre-orders. That is still a good sign, as Verizon, AT&T and others are apparently confident that demand will be high for the new Samsung smartphones. There is no guarantee, though.
When HP launched its TouchPad WebOS tablet there were reports that HP had sold “millions” of them. Those reports were perhaps true, but those millions were just sitting in warehouses of electronics retailers like Best Buy. After selling almost none of them to actual consumers HP pulled the plug on the whole concept and clearance out the whole inventory. The moral of the story is that it’s not really a sale until consumers pay money to buy it.
In my humble opinion, if the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge devices can sell even half of the 20 million forecast, it would still be a major victory for Samsung in particular and Android OS as a whole.
Are you interested in purchasing the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge? Let us know what attracts you to the latest Samsung smartphones, or why you don’t like the devices in the comment box below.
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