Samsung launched the Galaxy Note 20 series as the new “power phones” for the ever-changing world. However, the company seemingly isn’t expecting the new phones to sell too well.
According to a new report from The Elec, Samsung has ordered about 20 percent fewer components for the Galaxy Note 20 series than it did for their predecessors. The company apparently doesn’t want to keep a too big stock volume of the new smartphones.
It is expecting initial shipments of three million units for the latest S Pen-wielding Galaxy flagships, the report claims, citing people familiar with the matter. The report further adds that the total shipments are expected to sit around 10 million units by the end of the year. That’s around one million units more than Galaxy Note 10 sales last year.
But, despite a decent sales projection, Samsung is taking a conservative approach due to uncertainties around the ever-growing COVID-19 pandemic. It doesn’t want to produce too many units early on and struggle to get them off the shelves. Instead, the company will procure more components and produce more Note 20 phones if and when it sees a surge in demand. Perhaps, a lesson learned from the poor sales of the Galaxy S20 series.
However, if the global economic condition doesn’t improve over the next few months, Samsung may struggle to achieve its sales target for the Galaxy Note 20 this year. A recent data estimation by market tracker firm Counterpoint Research projected the company to sell around 8.5 million units of the new phones this year, around 500,000 units fewer than the Note 10.
Galaxy Note 20 Ultra should see a good demand
Although Samsung failed to sell the Galaxy S20 phones as much as it expected, the Ultra model did pretty well. It was the best-selling model of the trio, with demands early on even surpassing the company’s initial estimates. It is expecting similar demand for the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra as well.
There’s no mid (or plus) variant of the Note 20. There’s the top-tier Ultra model and vanilla Note 20, which makes way too many compromises to be called a true blue flagship. Samsung is banking on the Ultra model to drive sales of its new flagships. It expects the phone to account for 70 percent to 80 percent of the overall sales. The story was similar for last year’s Note 10 series as well, with the Plus model accounting for about 70 percent of total sales.
Samsung has priced the Galaxy Note 20 5G, which comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, at $999.99. The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G costs $1299.99 for the 12GB+128GB variant and $1499.99 for thee 12GB+512GB variant. Pre-orders for the phones are now open, will general sales beginning on August 21.