Samsung Galaxy S20 sales collapse ... Is Corona the reason?

Samsung is facing a massive sales crisis with the new Galaxy S20 series, but the Corona virus may not be the only reason for this.

According to the Korea Herald, through the Toms Guide website on technical matters, the series of this flagship phone has witnessed a "catastrophic" start, with sales falling 50% compared to the launch of the Galaxy S10 series last year.

Given that South Korea is the stronghold of the company, it is a key indication of the health of Samsung phone sales. Its phones there always perform better than the rest of the world, and although there are no sales figures around the world yet, this indicator does not look good for the company.

According to the newspaper, Samsung sold about 70,800 units of the entire Galaxy S20 series on the first day of its availability. For comparison, the company sold 140,000 units of the Galaxy S10 when it was launched, and 220,000 units of the Galaxy Note 10 when it was launched last August.

"Sales were affected by a sharp drop in discounts on new phones and a decrease in the number of visitors to retail stores due to concerns about infection with the Corona virus," the newspaper quoted a telecom official as saying.

Rising prices
The official also blamed low telecom operators for new phones and their high prices. That last bit may be the main cause of the problem, according to Toms Guide.

The website says that there is no doubt that the Corona virus may have played a role in this crisis, but the fact is that sales of flagship phones no longer make the fuss that they used to make.

The Samsung Galaxy S10 was another disappointment in sales for the Korean company, which led to a sharp drop in the price of the phone only five weeks after its launch, and only about two weeks after its availability in the markets. Before that, sales of the Galaxy S9 also slowed. For the last three years, this decline in sales has been occurring.

It appears - whether or not there is the Coronavirus - that people are fed up with the prices of the flagship phones. Apple has experienced this drop itself in sales of its flagship high-priced phones, which prompted it to straighten the path with the iPhone 11 that it offered at $ 699, and the iPhone SE2 is expected to be offered for $ 399.

Apple's move with the price of the iPhone 11 has proven the correctness of this trend, as by lowering the price of the base model, Apple has been able to reverse the path of previous leading phones, and in the meantime, the sales of phones of companies such as Chinese Xiaomi have been booming by offering high-quality flagship phones But at low prices.

Samsung, for its part, did not learn from the Apple lesson, and decided to raise the prices of all S20 phones, including the base model. The prices of the Galaxy S10, S10 Plus and S10 Plus 5G phones start from $ 899, $ 999 and $ 1299, respectively. The prices of the Galaxy S20, S20 Plus and S20 Ultra phones start from $ 999, $ 1199 and $ 1,399.

The company did not celebrate by offering an alternative phone for the Galaxy S10e, which started at $ 749, and instead reduced the price of phones last year from the Galaxy S10 series.

The site believes that the company may significantly reduce the price of S20 in the next few weeks as it did with the S10, and this may be its strategy: offering the phone at a high price to harvest the money of the first adopters, and then reduce the price later.