Samsung’s Galaxy S21 series has failed to revive the company’s flagship sales, as per a new report from the Elec. The company is said to be conducting a special review of its mobile business as the S21 has failed to perform not even relative to rivals, but compared to the Galaxy S20, S10, S9, and other previous flagships.
A report from the analyst firm Kiwoom Securities this week placed the Galaxy S21’s shipments for the first six months of its sales life at 13.5 million units, a drop of the 16.4 million units that the S20 sold in the same time frame and a massive drop from the 37 million sold by the S10.
It’s not clear why this happened, hence why Samsung is digging into it. Samsung’s Galaxy S21-series was a line of excellent phones, critically well-received with reviews praising the S21 Ultra as the best Android phone of 2021. The company also adapted to criticisms from the previous S20, lowering the starting price to $799, refreshing the design, improving the cameras, and the company has even sworn to make sure that its phones are supported nearly as long as iPhones.
The relative failure of the S21 comes in stark contrast to Apple and the iPhone 12. The other company was able to use the addition of 5G on the newest iPhones to reach its best sales period since the iPhone 6S, dubbed a super cycle. Unlike Samsung, Apple kept its prices the same and was successful, nonetheless. Now, Apple expects to beat its iPhone 12 sales targets with the iPhone 13 and has reportedly even prepared to ship around 90 million phones.
Apple is not Samsung’s only rival. Even with the absence of Huawei, Samsung’s newest Chinese competitor is Xiaomi. in Europe, Xiaomi has rapidly caught up to Samsung, overtaking it to become the top smartphone seller according to figures from Strategy Analytics. Counterpoint Research’s numbers have gone even further, saying that Xiaomi has become the number one smartphone manufacturer in the world in June 2021. Like Samsung, the company sells a slew of devices from the high-end Mi 11 to a selection of affordable midrange phones across a mixture of brands ranging from Poco to Redmi.
Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, commented: “Samsung shipments dropped -7% YoY in Europe resulting in shipments of 12M units in Q2 2021. Samsung is performing well with new 5G models from the Galaxy A series, but it faces increasing competition from Apple in the high-end and the Chinese vendors in the low-end, and it failed to take advantage of Huawei’s demise in Europe”.
Samsung is set to launch a new slew of devices at Unpacked in the Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G, Galaxy Buds 2, Galaxy Watch 4, and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic at August’s Galaxy Unpacked event over the next week. With the failure of the S21 series, the performance of the premium-priced foldables is going to be especially crucial for the company’s mobile division.
