Samsung has denied media reports that the company has sold one million Galaxy Fold smartphones globally. At TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin, a senior Samsung Electronics Co. executive indicated the company has sold 1 million Galaxy Fold since the device’s launch in September. Samsung Electronics President Sohn Young-kwon said it has sold 1 million Galaxy Folds so far, which is double the industry’s earlier estimate.
But a Samsung spokesperson said Sohn may have confused the figure with the company’s initial sales target for the year. The company has emphasized that sales of the tech firm’s first foldable handset have not reached 1 million units, Yonhap news agency reported on Friday. Earlier, Samsung said it expected to sell 5,00,000 Galaxy Fold globally this year. Many analysts previously expected that Samsung would sell about 4,00,000 to 5,00,000 units of the foldable phone this year.
Watch: Top 5 Features of Samsung Galaxy Fold
The Galaxy Fold officially went on sale in September with a price tag of around $2,000. It comes with a 7.3-inch screen that users can fold horizontally like a book. Industry insiders said Samsung’s foldable phone sales will pick up next year, with a possible 6 million units sold in 2020. It is rumored that Samsung will unveil its new clamshell-style foldable smartphone in February 2020 alongside its Galaxy S11 series.
“Samsung is expected to sell 6 million units of its foldable phone in 2020 and 20 million units in 2021,” Choi Bo-young, an analyst at Kyobo Securities, said. “Prices of foldable phones are expected to go down gradually, and this would push up demand for foldable handsets.”
While Samsung is not offering official sales figure for the Galaxy Fold, it does seem to have done well in the market. The device launched at MWC 2019 and ran into trouble as soon as it became available in April. Initial reviews showed the display was fragile and hinge could let dirt get into the device. Samsung stopped the sales and re-engineered the device. The new variant, which went on sale in September, has reportedly done better in terms of sales.
(Written with IANS inputs)
