Samsung’s latest Galaxy S smartphone tests brand strength in a weak market

SEOUL/SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) on Wednesday unveiled its latest premium smartphones with a focus on its powerful cameras, testing its brand strength as the mobile phone market experiences an unprecedented decline .

Analysts said the Galaxy S23 smartphone series, with its cameras and faster chips than its predecessor, could still face weak demand as consumers spend less amid rising inflation in a troubled global economy.

Acknowledging this challenge, the head of Samsung’s Mobile Experience or MX Business told reporters in a briefing after the event that there has been a “tangible shift to the premium segment” in developing and emerging markets. “We intend to focus on the premium segment in developed markets as well as some of the countries where we are seeing solid growth,” he said.

The smartphone maker demonstrated the performance of the S23 Ultra at the Samsung Unpacked event in San Francisco with clips from two films, “Behold” by Ridley Scott, director of “Gladiator” and “The Martian”, and “Faith” by South Korean director Na Hong-jin filmed both with the high-end Galaxy smartphone.

last update

Watch 2 more stories

It’s Samsung’s first-ever 200-megapixel camera sensor, and the series uses Qualcomm Inc’s (QCOM.O) Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile processor. Qualcomm said that the S23 series will use 100% Qualcomm processors.

At the event, executives from Samsung, Qualcomm and Google from Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O) gathered on stage to highlight their partnership in the XR space, which encompasses virtual and augmented reality.

Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said the three collaborated in the XR space about a decade ago, but the reboot to the partnership comes this time as Apple Inc (AAPL.O) looks set to launch its mixed reality headset here will bring to market year.

“I think it was designed to give both Samsung and Google a little more credibility in the XR space, since both have been pretty absent on the hardware side for quite some time,” Sag said.

In the United States, the base Galaxy S23 starts at $799 and two higher-end versions, the S23 Plus and S23 Ultra, start at $999 and $1,199, respectively. Samsung has kept the prices at the level of the previous year’s model despite increased component costs.

However, global smartphone shipments showed their biggest drop ever in a single quarter in the October-December period, when they fell 18.3% year over year to 300.3 million units, according to data from research firm IDC last month. The numbers cast doubt on forecasts for a slight recovery in the mobile communications market this year.

In this difficult environment, analysts said Samsung’s mobile strategy would focus on profitability through premium offerings, including the S series and foldable devices.

“Samsung can no longer afford to focus on expanding volume,” said Liz Lee, deputy director of research firm Counterpoint.

“It needs to boldly simplify low-end and mid-range products, the parts of the market where Chinese competitors have caught up a lot.”

Samsung said on Tuesday that the decline in sales of low- and mid-range smartphones in the fourth quarter was larger than expected.

Reporting by Joyce Lee; Edited by Jonathan Oatis and Christopher Cushing

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *