On 11 March, Samsung released the Galaxy S7, following claims by the South Korean electronics vendor that its pre-order volumes have beaten its predecessor the Galaxy S6.
According to CEO J.K. Shin, quoted in Reuters, the firm expects the S7 to sell better than the S6.
Growth is slowing in the smartphone sector. Gartner research revealed that growth in the sector has recently slowed to 2008 levels. The number of smartphones being shifted has still increased, from roughly 1.2 billion in 2014 to 1.4 billion in 2015.
Globally, the number of people planning to buy a new smartphone has fallen to 48 percent in 2016. This represents a 6 percent fall from the figure in 2015 and a 9 percent drop from the peak in 2014.
For total sales of smartphones in 2015, Samsung was the biggest seller, according to figures from Gartner. However, it saw its market share decline by 2.2 percent.
Samsung will be hoping that the S7 will be a big seller after the S6 saw disappointing take-up, taking several months to clock up 10 million sales. By July 2015, the company announced that it had seen a 38 percent year-on-year fall in sales in its mobile division.
But Samsung’s pattern of over-projecting and under-delivering has continued for several years now. The S5 shipped only 12 million units by July 2014 after an April launch, according to a Wall Street Journal report, four million fewer than the 16 million Galaxy S4 handsets shifted in the same period in 2013.
Sources told the Wall Street Journal that over 2014 sales of the S5 were 40 percent lower than Samsung had projected.
To address these issues, Samsung has tried to make its new device more than simply a sleeker version of the S6. The S7 introduces wireless charging technology as well as bringing back durability features such as IP68 water resistance that had been missing from the S6. A slot for an SD card has also been reintroduced.
Samsung’s strategy in terms of its device launches differs strongly from high-end device rival Apple.
Apple tends to launch new generations of the iPhone every two years at September events, meaning that the iPhone 7 isn’t due until September 2016.
Instead, the company uses the odd years to launch expanded additions to the current generation of iPhones: usually the ‘S’ models.
Apple has announced a launch event for new devices on 21 March, where rumours are circling (usually fairly accurate) that the event will see the launch of a smaller iPhone 6 and a new iPad Air.
Part of Samsung‘s problem is that many customers are moving over to iPhones, and part of it comes from competitors within the Android family.
"For Samsung to stop falling sales of premium smartphones, it needs to introduce new flagship smartphones that can compete with iPhones and stop the churn to iOS devices," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.
Within the Android market, Chinese vendor Huawei’s smartphone sales approached 104 million units, up 53 percent year over year, the Gartner figures revealed.
Apple sold 225.9 million iPhones in 2015, achieving a market share of almost 15.9 percent compared to 15.4 percent the previous year.
Samsung’s mobile strategy is now, according to a statement from the company, to "focus on strengthening the competitiveness of its software, along with hardware, services and wearable products."
Aside from smartphones, Samsung is seeing better performances in its components divisions, so these may play a role in its future performance.
The S7 could be the saviour for Samsung or it could be another disappointment, but Samsung is obviously hoping for big things.
