Samsung aims at shipping 60 million of its Galaxy S8 flagship smartphones, scheduled to release in mid April this year.
Mid April Release
The Investor, a Korean press outlet claims that Samsung is aiming at delivering 60 million Galaxy S8 devices. Samsung has placed orders for components to match this figure and is attempting to release the Galaxy S8 in the middle of April, one month later than the usual release date. For the past four years, Samsung has been releasing its flagship Android smartphones at the MWC held in Barcelona in the month of February.
Astounding Target
Releasing 60 million units of the Galaxy S8 seems to be extremely ambitious on the part of Samsung. The previous three Galaxy S generations of smartphones sold around 45 million for the S5 and 48 million units for the S7. The Samsung Galaxy S4 of 2013 holds the all time record of selling 70 million devices. The Galaxy S3 comes in a close second, selling 65 million devices. Samsung has specified this ambitious goal in order to overcome the loss that has been sustained by the company on account of the infamous Galaxy Note 7.
Mass Production
According to sources, Samsung is going into mass production of the Galaxy S8 from the month of March this year, with around 5 million devices being delivered on a monthly basis. Some of the partners for the component deliveries have been mentioned. These are Partron for the iris scanner modules, Sekonix for the camera lens, Amotech and Samsung Electro Mechanics. Samsung has asked these partners to supply the parts in order to fulfill its goal of producing 60 million devices, according to industry sources statement to The Investor.
The mass production of the Galaxy S8 devices begins in March this year, with 5 million devices being rolled out each month, after receiving the electronic components from the major vendors in February. This includes the camera iris scanners and the camera lens, from Partron and Sekonix respectively.
A Comeback
However, it is not certain whether Samsung can make a comeback with the Galaxy S8, as there are challenges posed by competing firms like Huawei from China. Apple, a key rival in the US, will probably sell around 80 million of its iPhone 8 smartphones during the later part of 2017, going by estimates of Nomura Securities. Analysts are seriously doubtful about the 60 million unit target for the Galaxy S8. Chinese firms are dominating the smartphone market and posing serious threats to both Samsung and Apple.
Solid Earnings
On the other hand, Samsung has shown resilience by way of solid earning for the 4th quarter with improved profits. This can be attributed to the marketing drive towards sales of the Galaxy S7 and the S7 Edge, which made up for the loss of the incendiary Galaxy Note 7, to a certain extent. Also contributing to the profits was the robust sales of the Samsung memory chips during that period.