The Samsung Galaxy S10 series appears to have gained a lot more popularity in China compared to its predecessor, at least according to a recent pre-sale. Leakster Ice Universe revealed in a recent tweet that Samsung managed to push twice as many Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ units in a two-hour pre-sale time window compared to the Galaxy S9 series which benefited from a 24-hour pre-sale timeframe.
If these figures are anything to go by then Samsung might be able to gain more traction in China with the latest flagship models. The OEM’s market share in the Far-Eastern country is basically insignificant compared to other local OEMs, falling below 1-percent as of the fourth quarter of 2017.
The Chinese smartphone market remains dominated by local brands, particularly Huawei in the first place, who is followed by OPPO and Vivo. Somehow Apple still manages to maintain its presence in China, occupying the fourth spot as of Q4 2018, and the Cupertino giant is followed by Xiaomi and Meizu, the latter of which accounts for 2-percent of the market.
Samsung’s global market share declined in recent quarters according to recent studies, but the Korean OEM remains the largest smartphone vendor in the world with an 18.7-percent share and is followed closely by Apple whose iPhones covered 18.2-percent of the market in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Despite maintaining its top stop on the global market, Samsung has struggled to make a dent in China. Having said that, the recent Samsung Galaxy S10 pre-sale performance seems like a good omen and should be a good enough reason for celebration for the OEM. This is especially true considering the high launch prices for the new flagship series compared to other high-end alternatives offered by local brands.
It’s unclear how many units Samsung managed to push during the recent pre-sale window but regardless, the recent success won’t be enough to turn Samsung’s ship around. However, it might indicate that smartphone users in China have been impressed by the latest flagship series, and could mean that the Samsung Galaxy S10 lineup will perform well in this marketplace once it becomes widely-available next week.
In the U.S. the Samsung Galaxy S10 will hit the shelves for $899, whereas the larger Samsung Galaxy S10+ will have a starting price of $999. Meanwhile, the flat-screened Galaxy S10e will launch for $749. It’s not entirely clear if the budget-friendlier model was part of the pre-sale as it hasn’t been mentioned by the source, but either way, its $749 price tag still exceeds the asking price of numerous other high-end devices sold by Chinese OEMs.
In China, all three models are equipped with the Snapdragon 855 SoC supplied by Qualcomm, as opposed to Samsung’s in-house Exynos 9820 chipset solution. The trio runs Android 9.0 Pie with the OEM’s new One UI on top, and each model boasts no less than 128GB of built-in memory while giving the option to expand the storage by up to an additional 512GB via a microSD card slot. The Samsung Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+ feature a triple main camera configuration whereas the Galaxy S10e carries two modules on the back panel.