Pre-orders for Samsung’s latest flagship smartphones have been “better than expected,” according to the head of its mobile division.
Koh Dong-jin’s comment came the day after Samsung confirmed that in the US, pre-orders for its new Galaxy S8 smartphone are stronger than they were for its predecessor, the Galaxy S7.
The high level of consumer interest should come as considerable relief to Samsung, given the fiasco over its last major device, the Galaxy Note7. After reports of units catching fire led to a total recall of that device, there was a high level of anxiety over the company’s future as a premiere smartphone maker and the chief rival to Apple.
Part of the solution may lie in Samsung’s embrace of biometrics. The company had initially hoped to make a splash with its pioneering use of iris scanning on the Note7, and has carried the feature over to the Galaxy S8, where it has been coupled with facial recognition. That allows for secure and convenient device unlocking for users, and should offer the same benefits to transaction verification on the Samsung Pay mPayment platform. The new biometric modalities seem to have also made it easier for Samsung to shunt the device’s fingerprint scanner to its backside, freeing up more space for the full-size display, which also offers considerable market appeal.
As CNBC reports, Counterpoint Research has predicted that Samsung will ship almost 50 million of its new smartphones this year, beating the S7 and S7 Edge’s record of 48 million. The Galaxy S8 is scheduled to launch in the US, Canada, and South Korea on April 21st.
Source: CNBC
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