Samsung sees rebound in US on S10 success

Samsung Electronics' Galaxy S10 smartphones / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

By Baek Byung-yeul

Samsung Electronics is narrowing the smartphone market share gap with the league leader Apple in North America, as its latest premium smartphone Galaxy S10 succeeded in appealing to consumers there.

According to a report from Singapore-based industry tracker Canalys on Friday, Samsung enjoyed robust selling of its smartphones in the first three months of 2019, shipping 10.7 million to the North American region to be placed second following Apple, which shipped 14.6 million smartphones.

The figure is a 3 percent increase year-on-year while Apple experienced a 19 percent drop. The increased shipments also lifted Samsung's market share from 23.2 percent to 29.3 percent while Apple witnessed its market share slide from 40.3 percent to 40 percent.

LG Electronics ranked third after shipping 4.8 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2019, a 24 percent decrease year-on-year, but it still holds the third largest market share with 4.8 percent.

The industry tracker said smartphone shipments in the first quarter there hit a five-year low as a total of 36.4 million smartphones were shipped, an 18 percent decrease year-on-year. But Samsung stood out in the gloom thanks to the Galaxy S10 smartphones.

Among the smartphone models, Samsung's two Galaxy S10 variations ― the S10+ model that has a 6.4-inch screen and S10e with 5.8-inch screen ― tied for second place as best-selling smartphones, selling 2 million respectively. They were followed by Apple's iPhone XR, which sold 4.5 million.

The report said Samsung could narrow Apple's lead in the first quarter as the Korean firm “scheduled an earlier launch date for the S10 series and more than doubled shipments over the S9 series in their respective launch quarters.”

Vincent Thielke, an analyst of Canalys said, Samsung's strategy to bring real differentiation to its Galaxy S10 devices worked well to improve its performance in the North American region.

“Its triple camera, ultra-wide-angle lens, hole-punch display and reverse wireless charging all raised consumer interest. While these technologies are not new, Samsung is among the first to bring them to the United States in a mass-market smartphone, and the appeal of such new features will be important for other launches this year,” the analyst said.

Stating that Samsung greatly benefited from strong promotion efforts of mobile carriers that provided a series of promotions such as a buy-one-get-one-free offer or discount offer when purchasing the Galaxy S10e, the analyst said Samsung may face difficulties in boosting its smartphone sales.

“Samsung also benefited from carrier promotions in Q1, which used the Galaxy S10e as an incentive. But it will come under pressure later in 2019 as other vendors, such as OnePlus, follow suit with new features, while Google starts expanding into additional channels and price bands, and ZTE attempts to re-establish its footprint at the low end,” Thielke said.