According to foreign media reports, as the new coronary pneumonia epidemic severely affected consumer demand, South Korea ’s latest flagship series of Galaxy S20 smartphones in South Korea did not sell as well as previously launched flagship products.
According to Yonhap News, data from operators show that the Galaxy S20 series of mobile phones in Korea have only reached 60% of the sales of the Galaxy S10 5G series. Samsung has not yet announced specific figures. It is expected that the sales of Galaxy S20 series mobile phones will be about 80% of the Galaxy S10 5G series.
Another analysis predicts that Samsung's mobile phone shipments in the first quarter of this year may be 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 mobile phone business belongs in the first quarter will be approximately 2.5 trillion won (approximately US $ 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 US $ 2.38 billion), and in the fourth quarter it was 2.5 trillion won (approximately US $ 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 US dollars), an increase of 2.73% year-on-year. Samsung's first quarter results will be announced at the end of the month.
Under the impact of the epidemic, Samsung is also trying to help stimulate the growth of mobile phone sales through a number of measures. Samsung hopes to become the leader of the new generation of 5G mobile phone market, this year launched a series of 5G mobile phones. Earlier this month, Samsung's new Galaxy A71 5G and Galaxy A51 5G smartphones were unveiled, showing that Samsung is working hard to expand its lineup of phones that support 5G. The Yonhap News Agency quoted sources as saying that the two phones will be first listed in South Korea before May, and the price will be between 400,000 won (about US $ 329) and 500,000 won (about US $ 411).
Samsung hopes to help boost mobile phone sales through a new generation of lower-priced products. The Galaxy S20 series smartphones launched last month are relatively expensive, with a starting price of about $ 1,000.
According to industry analytics company Strategy Analytics, Samsung ’s share of the global 5G smartphone market last year was 35.8%, and 5G mobile phone shipments were 6.7 million units, only slightly behind China ’s Huawei. Huawei shipped 6.9 million units, with a market share of 36.9%.
As consumer sentiment is affected by the epidemic, global smartphone sales have suffered a decline. Strategy Analytics has recently reduced its global smartphone shipments to 1 billion units from the previously estimated 1.3 billion units.
