Samsung Electronics on Tuesday boasted about its Galaxy Note 8 phablet and all of the pre-order records it’s currently setting around the globe as Apple was getting ready to unveil its latest flagship in the form of the iPhone X (pronounced “ten”). The South Korean original equipment manufacturer said that advanced orders for the Galaxy Note 8 surpassed the 650,000 mark and have significantly outperformed its discontinued predecessor, indicating that an unprecedently high price tag won’t be a success-determining factor in the premium smartphone segment this holiday season, some industry watchers claim.
The new-generation iPhone is equipped with what Apple calls the Super Retina display and is actually a Super AMOLED panel manufactured by Samsung Display, marking the first time that the Cupertino, California-based tech giant opted for commercializing such a module on a smartphone. A number of analysts were previously skeptical about the prospects of the iPhone X due to its extremely high price tag which starts at $999 for the 64GB model but now believe that the firm has another massive hit on their hands, as evidenced by the current success of the Galaxy Note 8. Following the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco in late 2016, Samsung released its successor with a price tag starting at $950 in the United States and surpassing $1000 in many markets, yet the demand for a new Galaxy Note-series device proved to be relatively inelastic and apparently grew in the last 12 months as consumers were left without a contemporary S Pen-equipped handset to purchase.
Both Samsung and Apple experienced a slight decline in terms of their global performance at the start of the year, though they still hold more than a third of the global smartphone market combined based on both shipments and sales, according to a number of industry trackers. While some current trends in Asia and several other markets indicate that consumers are either tired of upgrading their smartphones on an annual basis or are turning toward more value-oriented alternatives, both the Galaxy Note 8 and the iPhone X are largely believed to be massive commercial successes. The same holds true for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus which Apple also debuted yesterday morning, presenting two more incremental upgrades over its older iOS devices.