The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus are currently outselling the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge by approximately 15 percent, Samsung Mobile chief DJ Koh was recently quoted as saying at a conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The senior executive of the South Korean original equipment manufacturer (OEM) thus dismissed recent rumors that the Galaxy S8 lineup is underperforming compared to its predecessors, as some industry watchers previously started speculating about the commercial decline of the firm’s last two flagships due to the fact that Samsung stopped sharing their sales figures two months ago. The tech giant promptly downplayed those reports by stating how the two series cannot be directly compared due to the fact that the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus didn’t release simultaneously in all parts of the world, further reinforcing the notion of the lineup underperforming, but Koh’s latest comment on the matter indicates the opposite.
The head of Samsung Mobile still didn’t provide concrete sales figures for the firm’s premium handset series, though he said that the phone maker is expecting the performance of the two devices to be maintained throughout the second half of the year. Koh also recently revealed that the Seoul-based consumer electronics manufacturer is planning to unveil the highly anticipated Galaxy Note 8 in late August before releasing it at some point in September, hence confirming a number of previous rumors on the matter. The successor to the discontinued Galaxy Note 7 is expected to make amends for its ill-fated predecessor and become Samsung’s most powerful handset to date, sporting 6GB of RAM and being powered by the high-end Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 8895, depending on the market, according to older reports.
The release of the Galaxy Note 8 is also likely to negatively affect the commercial performance of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, making Koh’s expectations of maintained performance throughout the final two quarters of the year somewhat optimistic, though the executive may have simply meant that Samsung isn’t expecting a significant drop in Galaxy S8 sales during the same period. An update on the Galaxy Note 8 and the OEM’s general hardware endeavors is expected to follow shortly.