Do weak first day sales spell trouble for the S10 in Samsung’s back yard?
The Samsung Galaxy S10 family is coming this Friday, but there’s already a warning sign that the new flagship might not be the runaway success Samsung is hoping for.
Appropriately enough, that warning comes from Samsung’s home of South Korea, where local mobile carrier registrations for the new handsets opened yesterday. The Korea Herald reports that the total came to 140,000 units, which sounds pretty promising until you realise that last year’s S9 managed 180,000 and the Note 9 200,000 in the same time period.
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If Samsung’s new flagship line continues to lag like this – and it may well not – it’s not down to early hands-on reviews, which have been pretty much universally positive about the S10 family. You can read our early impressions of the Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10 Plus and Galaxy S10e for proof of that.
What’s more likely to be an issue is a general sense of high-end phone fatigue. Last year’s Galaxy S9 is still lightning fast, and that felt like an incremental improvement on the Galaxy S8 in various ways. Even the ageing Galaxy S7 isn’t exactly a slowpoke for most people’s needs.
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Add to that the fact that Samsung has already upstaged the S10 launch with not one, but two more handsets on the horizon – the Galaxy S10 5G edition, and the folding Galaxy Fold – and you can see why registrations make look a little sluggish.
The S10 could be just caught between two stools: not as exciting as the Galaxy Fold for tech enthusiasts, and expensive overkill for those who find the S9 more than fast enough. However, it’s still early days.
Do you think the Samsung Galaxy S10 is going to struggle to make as big a mark as its predecessors? Let us know what you think on Twitter: @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
