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Galaxy S9 not selling as well as Galaxy S8, which didn't sell as well as the S7
- According to industry analysts’ reports on Samsung Galaxy S9 sales around the world, the numbers don’t match the Galaxy S8.
- The Galaxy S8 itself reportedly didn’t sell as well as the S7.
- If this trend continues, it is feasible that Samsung could lose its position as the world’s biggest smartphone vendor.
According to industry analysts speaking with Reuters, the Samsung Galaxy S9 is not selling as well globally as the Samsung Galaxy S8. This is particularly alarming, as the S8 reportedly didn’t sell as well as the Samsung Galaxy S7.
In fact, the most recent Galaxy S models can’t hold a candle to the numbers of peak Samsung – the Samsung Galaxy S4, which reportedly sold a whopping 80 million units.
It should be noted that it can be difficult to get a firm grip on how well smartphones sell. The easiest hard data to obtain is how many smartphones overall each company ships, which gets published every quarter by IDC.
But those numbers don’t tell us how many smartphones were actually sold, and it only gives us a broad view of all a company’s smartphones, not the specific data of each device.
However, the opinion of market analysts combined with related industry data points to one thing: Samsung’s phones just aren’t selling as well as they did years ago.
Analysts expect that Samsung will report an overall smartphone sales drop this most recent quarter. So far this year, Samsung’s shares are down 9 percent.
With the success of the Apple iPhone X and Chinese companies like Huawei and Xiaomi eating away at Samsung’s hold in the mid-range market globally, Samsung’s standing as top dog in the world’s smartphone industry might be in jeopardy.
Samsung could be in big, big trouble.
The chief criticism of Samsung’s smartphone offerings by both industry analysts and review sites like us here at Android Authority is that Samsung’s recent devices simply don’t offer anything new that is considered a “must have” feature. The Samsung Galaxy S9, for example, is virtually identical to the Galaxy S8, with minor upgrades that most smartphone buyers either don’t understand or don’t care about.
With rumors abounding that the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will also be a virtual clone of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 – with some interesting-but-very-un-sexy upgrades to the S Pen – it wouldn’t be surprising if the Note 9’s sales numbers reflect those of the Galaxy S9.
Meanwhile, Chinese companies like Vivo, Oppo, and Huawei, are releasing devices with innovative features like pop-up selfie shooters, underglass fingerprint scanners, and triple-lens rear cameras. Even Apple’s iPhone X is credited with leading the industry on the “notch” design aesthetic, even though smaller Android company Essential did it first.
If Samsung is going to pull itself out of this slump, it’s going to need to do two things: release risky, innovative flagship devices and create affordable, powerful mid-range devices. If it doesn’t adopt these two strategies, it will only be a matter of time before Apple and/or HUAWEI will overtake its position as the world’s biggest smartphone vendor.