AFP, Seoul :
Samsung said Thursday it expected its new flagship smartphone to shatter sales records and pull the company out of a recent profit slump that saw it lose ground to arch-rival Apple and cheaper Chinese makers.
The Galaxy S6 is the sixth edition of the South Korean electronics giant’s high-end, signature handset.
Along with its curved-edge variant, the Galaxy S6 Edge, the S6 will hit stores at home and in some 20 countries, including the United States, China and Australia on Friday.
Unveiled in March, the two phones have received rave reviews-fanning hopes of a big comeback for Samsung after the much-criticised Galaxy S5 largely flopped last year.
“Given the response from the market and clients … we expect the S6 to set a sales record for all Galaxy models,” Lee Sang-Chul, the vice head of Samsung’s mobile unit, told reporters.
Samsung rarely discloses handset sales figures but the Galaxy S4 — released in 2013 — is known to have set the firm’s sales record of 70 million units globally.
The firm suffered a dramatic slide in profits last year, hit by slowing demand in an increasingly saturated and competitive smartphone market that it had largely dominated since 2011.
The company struggled to fend off a double challenge from Apple in the high-end market and rising Chinese firms such as Lenovo and Xiaomi in the fast-growing mid and low-end markets.
Samsung said Thursday it expected its new flagship smartphone to shatter sales records and pull the company out of a recent profit slump that saw it lose ground to arch-rival Apple and cheaper Chinese makers.
The Galaxy S6 is the sixth edition of the South Korean electronics giant’s high-end, signature handset.
Along with its curved-edge variant, the Galaxy S6 Edge, the S6 will hit stores at home and in some 20 countries, including the United States, China and Australia on Friday.
Unveiled in March, the two phones have received rave reviews-fanning hopes of a big comeback for Samsung after the much-criticised Galaxy S5 largely flopped last year.
“Given the response from the market and clients … we expect the S6 to set a sales record for all Galaxy models,” Lee Sang-Chul, the vice head of Samsung’s mobile unit, told reporters.
Samsung rarely discloses handset sales figures but the Galaxy S4 — released in 2013 — is known to have set the firm’s sales record of 70 million units globally.
The firm suffered a dramatic slide in profits last year, hit by slowing demand in an increasingly saturated and competitive smartphone market that it had largely dominated since 2011.
The company struggled to fend off a double challenge from Apple in the high-end market and rising Chinese firms such as Lenovo and Xiaomi in the fast-growing mid and low-end markets.
