Samsung announced the Galaxy S4 at the weird March 14 presser and although it won’t land on store shelves before May, early pre-orders are encouraging. According to one estimate, the volume of pre-orders for the S4 has reportedly surpassed ten million units in the two weeks since its unveiling.
By comparison, its predecessor, the Galaxy S3, saw nine million pre-orders prior to its launch while Apple confirmed its iPhone 5 had been pre-ordered five million times over the launch weekend alone. These are no doubt strong numbers.
Analysts are forecasting cumulative sales volume of the Galaxy S4 of a hundred million units. And in recognition that not everyone prefers a phablet in their pocket, a high-profile publication has confirmed that a smaller and cheaper version of the S4 will follow soon…
The ten million pre-orders milestone was first reported by the Seoul-based Korea Economic Daily newspaper.
We’ll see how the S4 performs in the marketplace once it arrives. For now, it would seem the phone is attracting lots of free press and Samsung’s marketing machine hasn’t even started rolling ads.
If Twitter is anything to go by, the iPhone still holds more mass appeal with consumers as the iPhone 5 out-tweeted the S4 by five to one, per Investing Analytics analysis of tweets on the device’s respective launch day.
iPhone 5 related tweets on launch day: 2.4 million (S4: 440,000).
Analyst Gene Muster (via Fortune) observed that 81 percent of the tweets about the Galaxy had a “positive bias” versus 73 percent for the iPhone:
We believe the iPhone 5 was well telegraphed, thus some consumers may have been let down that there were no surprises.
Carrier AT&T will start accepting pre-orders on April 16, with a $249.99 subsidized price tag which entails a new two-year service agreement.
Rival T-Mobile last week said it will be the first major telco to sell the S4 in the United States (registere your interest here). The Deutsche Telekom-owned carrier confirmed the S4 will hit its stores May 1 for $99 down and $20 a month for 24 months.
Meanwhile, Geek.com claims the South Korean conglomerate is gearing up to launch Samsung Stores within-a-store at select Best Buy locations to promote not just the S4, but also other Samsung products – although the emphasis will be presumably on the handset ahead of the launch.
The S4 comes with a five-inch full HD 1080p display and runs a quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor for all U.S. variants. All told, Samsung’s new baby should launch on a whopping 327 carriers worldwide and in 155 countries. The iPhone 5 is only available in hundred markets across 240 carriers.
If you’re wondering how the heck Samsung managed to screw pretty much everyone in the mobile space to become the world’s leading maker of both smartphones and all cell phones (hint: by being the anti-Apple), Bloomberg Businessweek has a detailed feature story on that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LHv1FPd1Ec
Surprisingly, the article appears to have leaked the previously unknown factoid, that Samsung also has a Galaxy S4 version with a smaller screen:
The Galaxy S 4 doesn’t come out until late April. It’s fast, has a big, bright screen, and will probably be another huge hit for Samsung, as will the S 4 mini that will go on sale soon after.
This shouldn’t be terribly surprising: after all, Samsung similarly released the Galaxy S III Mini last year, a more compact and cheaper version of the S III.
Renderings of the Galaxy S4 via Martin Hajek.