It’s turning out to be a fantastic year for Samsung and after the launch of its latest foldable phones — Galaxy Z Flip5 and Galaxy Z Fold5 — it looks like festive season cheers have arrived early. The company has received 150,000 pre-bookings for its recently-launched foldable smartphones. Pre-bookings for its fifth generation of foldable devices opened in India on July 27 and pre-bookings closed on August 17. Interestingly, a lot of people buying the Galaxy Z Flip5 are new to Samsung.
There is strong demand from tier-I and tier-II cities, witnessing 1.4x growth versus last year. Interestingly, demand in tier-II and tier-IV towns has also grown at the same pace. In terms of distribution footprint, the foldable phones are available across 10,000 stores in India, up from 6,000 stores through which the previous generation of foldables were sold. Here’s what Aditya Babbar, senior director, mobile business, Samsung India, told us.
Where did the record pre-bookings come from?
We have had a record pre-booking, which is 1.5x of last year, and in number terms, it is 150,000 (for Galaxy Z Flip5 and Galaxy Z Fold5 smartphones). I think that’s a great momentum for the industry also. Where did we get such high pre-booking numbers? We saw demand from urban areas and beyond. Urban has done phenomenally well and we also see a phenomenal growth in tier-II and tier-III cities.
Our software and the support we offer have helped make this a success. We work very closely with our partners, like Google. There is also the fact that the Fold comes with S-Pen support to IP rating (IPX8 water resistance), a Qualcomm chipset (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy) and more.
Where we have invested a lot is… we have grown our distribution width by almost 50 per cent. We have invested in training as well as consumer experience. Third aspect which has been very important for us in this journey is customer affordability. When I travel, I see the biggest consumer need is trade-in. And Samsung Finance+ has been very helpful. Anybody who wants to go up (the smartphone ladder) wants to trade in and want easy EMI. Earlier it was more like an ‘or’ offer. I could have bought a phone using a credit card or an upgrade or an EMI. We have challenged our status quo and said customers should get more. As a consumer, I get an upgrade bonus. Imagine selling my old J Series phone and getting Rs 8,000 as bonus. Plus, say, I get a 24-month EMI. That helped us democratise the device affordability space.
Aditya Babbar, senior director, mobile business, Samsung India
Who are buying the foldable phones?
What we have seen and also surveys are showing, foldable consumers are using the Fold for the big screen and the design. Although 70 per cent people say that the key decision to buy a foldable is the unique design, but at the same time, top 50 per cent of the users are saying that multitasking on the foldable is the best. Whereas in the account of Flip, 50 per cent of consumers is buying it for the pocketability factor and unique design. And 29 per cent people find the Flex cam on the Flip extremely unique. Foldable consumers are between 25 and 44 years old. Flip consumers are less than 35 years old, interestingly split equally between male and female. They are the trendsetters. A very important data point is that 50 per cent of our Flip users (going by pre-bookings) are new to Samsung.
Where do you see the Samsung ecosystem going from here? In the last few years, there has been a massive improvement in how Samsung devices talk to each other.
Multi-device experience is very important for consumers. We have from a tablet to a laptop to a smartwatch to a phone to the Buds. We have worked on a few pillars to make this happen. One is connection… devices should connect seamlessly. I can click a picture on my phone and then just drag and drop it to my laptop. We will continue to make this part stronger.