Samsung’s Australian smartphone business appears to be in a healthier state than the US.
According to Gary McGregor Vice President of Samsung’s mobile division premium smartphones are up despite the overall market falling during the past year in Australia. However, the US market is fast becoming a basket case for Samsung and Motorola as well as TCL who has basically pulled out of ther Australian market, according to Counterpoint Research.
During the past 12 months Samsung share of the US market fell 37%, Apple 6%, Motorola 17% and TCL Alcatel 69%.
The overall market was down 24%.
Samsung’s biggest selling phone right now is the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which accounts for 70 per cent of all Galaxy S23 sales in Australia.
In contrast, the Galaxy S22 Ultra accounted for only 50 per cent of overall S22 sales, McGregor claimed during an interview with ChannelNews.
Last week at the launch of the Galaxy Z Flip5 and Z Fold5 in Seoul South Korea, TM Roh, the head of Samsung’s mobile division, claimed that Samsung sold 10 million foldable phones last year (60% of which were Galaxy Z Flip4s, 40% Z Fold4s).
This year the Company claims that they expect to sell 50% more than that in markets such as Australia which is a high adopter market for premium smartphones.
The target is 15 million units of foldable devices.
Analyst group Trendforce are predicting that 18 million foldables will be shipped this year, others (IDC) are saying that the number will be above 20 million. That will mean that three quarters of all foldables sold in 2023 will be Galaxy’s, the next best model is tipped to be the Motorola Razr in Australia.
While the 2022 models had a fairly even split, TM Roh expects that this year the Galaxy Z Flip5 will have a bigger lead over the Galaxy Z Fold5.
According to McGregor the biggest selling foldable in Australia is the Fold 4.
Roh said that in the global market “foldable sales will exceed 20% of all Galaxy flagships”.
Last year the head of the mobile division claimed that Galaxy Z foldables will surpass the Galaxy S series by 2025.
“It’s doable if Samsung can maintain this pace of growth for the Z series, next year we will have a better idea whether the 2025 target is achievable” he said.
