Samsung receives record pre-orders for S6, Edge

DJ Leigh Lezark, left, and Geordon Nicol, use Samsung Electronics' new flagship, Galaxy S6, during its official launch event in Paris, France, last week.
/ Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

Two Galaxy device will be available in 'all countries'

By Kim Yoo-chul

BARCELONA, Spain ― Samsung Electronics has received record orders for its recently unveiled flagship devices ― the Galaxy S6 (S6) and Galaxy S6 Edge (S6 Edge).

"Samsung received some 20 million pre-orders for the S6 and S6 Edge _ 15 million of S6 and five million of the S6 Edge from mobile carriers, worldwide. This is the record," a top executive at a leading mobile carrier in Europe told The Korea Times last week at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) expo in Barcelona.

The executive, who wished to remain unidentified due to confidentiality, said his company had come away with a positive impression of all aspects of the two Galaxies.

The Netherlands was the first country to start receiving orders of the Galaxies. The entry-level 32-gigabyte S6 will cost 700 euros, while the S6 Edge is 850 euros without a contract.

During the MWC convention, Samsung Electronics mobile chief Shin Jong-kyun told Korean reporters that the response to the two Galaxies was far better than the previous model.

"To be honest, pre-orders of the two Galaxy variants from our major clients are really huge," Shin said.

Coming on the heels of the company's first market-share loss in the high-end smartphone segment since 2010, Samsung plans to launch an aggressive promotional campaign, offering more incentives and benefits to carriers and consumers before the new Apple iPhone is launched later this year.

A Samsung Electronics spokesman in Seoul declined to comment on the Galaxy orders.

Shin said earlier he had no doubt that S6 sales would be much higher than those of the S5.

Citing solid improvements in key areas, Mark C. Newman, at Bernstein Research in Hong Kong, said the new Galaxies had the potential to beat expectations.

"We think the components side of the S6 is more positive for Samsung's earnings direction, with the processor moving internally (saving potentially $28 a phone), significantly more memory (DRAM and particularly NAND) and the display showing off their technology lead in flexible OLED," Newman said in a report.

Lee Min-ah, at Hi Investment, a brokerage based in Korea, said the S6 had differentiated itself from Apple's iPhone 6 in terms of specifications.

"It's no surprise to see that Samsung received historically high pre-orders of the recent phone," Lee said. "But the key point is how the firm set a competitive price for the entry-level model."

The S6 and S6 Edge sport a 5.1-inch OLED QHD display with a 2560x1440 resolution (557 ppi pixels per inch), the screens are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4, and are powered by an Exynos 7420 processor, run on Android 5.0 Lollipop.

The devices come packed with 32GB, 64GB and 128GB internal memory as well as LPDDR 3 3GB RAM, and house a 16MP main camera with optical image stabilizer.