1 million clamshell Samsung phones already pre-ordered. With more well on the way…

So far, so good: Samsung’s sparkling new phones – the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Galaxy Z Fold 5 – are selling like hotcakes.

In South Korea alone, people have made 1.02 million pre-orders for the latest foldable duo from the homeland giant (via 9to5Google). That’s actually some record-breaking statistics, according to Yonhap News’s report on sales information from Samsung.

Last year, when the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Z Fold 4 debuted, Samsung reported 970,000 pre-orders for those clamshells for the same period. A difference of just 50,000 in the context of million-sold devices may not look like much, but in the current turbulent times for both Apple and Samsung (and other lesser known brands), any success, however negligible at first glance, is to be celebrated.

Which one is more popular?

The 1.02 million received pre-orders are not split 50-50 when it comes to the question of which one – the Galaxy Z Flip 5 or the Fold 5 – is the more popular device choice. In fact, the ratio is heavy towards the Flip 5 side, with the model accounting for a total of 70% of all the million pre-orders. It’s not hard at all to come up with an explanation for that phenomenon. One simple glance at both devices and you can see why users are having the hots for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 – the upgrades over its predecessor are more noticeable than those found in the ‘Galaxy Z Fold 5 vs. Fold 4’ comparison.

There are several key features and upgrades in the brand-new Flip 5 model, namely:
Larger and now usable cover screen
The phone closes with no gap
Upgraded Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor
Double the storage (256GB) in the base model
Improved image processing algorithms

The new and almost four times bigger (vs. the one found on the Flip 4) 3,4-inch external screen now provides support for a bunch of third-party apps, such as YouTube, Google Maps, and Netflix. The sheer size of that thing even allows users to text on it, without unfolding the phone.

Will the youth in Korea ditch Apple?

It would be interesting to see the age demographics of that record-breaking 1.02 million Korean pre-orders. Why? Well, because in Samsung’s homeland phone, a research survey showed that users under 30 are heavily invested in the iPhone mafia. About 85% of South Korean smartphone users under 30 started with an Android device as their first smartphone, but 53% of them nowadays have switched to iPhone.