Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9 surpassed the Galaxy S9-series devices by pre-orders in the company’s home country, The Korea Herald’s Investor reports, citing sources familiar with the development. While the Far Eastern country amounts to only a small percentage of the Galaxy Note 9’s overall target market, the domestic performance of Samsung’s contemporary Android flagships historically mirrored their global sales with minimal deviations. Local wireless carriers now claim the number of Galaxy Note 9 pre-orders is between 30- to 50-percent higher compared to the Galaxy S9 line, though the Galaxy Note 8 still enjoyed a more successful pre-release period as of Monday, with its successor reaching some 80-percent of its total advanced orders so far.
The Galaxy Note 9 is unlikely to make up for that difference in South Korea given how local wireless carriers will stop receiving advanced orders tomorrow and start sending early units to customers prior to the handsets official release on Friday, August 24. The current state of affairs is still being largely described as positive given how the Galaxy Note 8’s performance was an anomaly caused by the fact that the Galaxy Note 7 was discontinued and left the fans of the stylus-equipped series without their annual upgrade option in 2016, which is believed to have significantly increased the demand for the next device in the Android smartphone lineup.
This year’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus haven’t been selling in accordance with Samsung’s expectations, as the company itself admitted in its second-quarter consolidated financial report. The lackluster performance of the tech giant’s flagships prompted an early launch of the Galaxy Note 9 which ended up being accompanied by more aggressive pre-order deals and promotions, many of which are still available in the West. The new smartphone starts at approximately $999 and goes up to $1,249, depending on the market. Besides annual improvements in the internal hardware department, the Samsung-made device also boasts a significantly revamped S Pen which now features Bluetooth capabilities and can hence act as a remote control for music and video playback, presentations, and certain games.