Samsung boasts massive Galaxy S24 Ultra popularity as new flagship series becomes globally available
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Deemed a big box-office hit in both India and South Korea before it actually began shipping to its earliest adopters, the Galaxy S24 family of ultra-high-end handsets is now officially available around the world.
Surprisingly or not, this global sales start not only brings with it the end of pre-orders and those sweet pre-order deals but also the commencement of inevitable discussions around possible issues, glitches, and imperfections pertaining to both the hardware and software found on the S24, S24 Plus, and S24 Ultra at launch.
Of course, Samsung would very much prefer if we continued focusing more on the early success of the company's latest super-premium smartphones, although in the absence of clear and specific pre-order numbers, that's pretty hard to do for more than a few minutes.
The S24 series is more popular than the S23 roster
That was very obviously true for the two aforementioned key markets, and it's apparently and predictably true as far as the entire world is concerned, but it's difficult to ascertain the magnitude of the Galaxy S24 family's progress over the S23 trio given Samsung's vagueness on the matter.
All that the tech giant is prepared to confirm at this moment in time is a "double-digit increase in pre-order sales" for the S24 series compared to last year's Galaxy S23 lineup during the same period, which could mean any number of things. Something tells us that the world's second-largest smartphone vendor would have been more specific about this figure if it was something truly towering, like a 50 or 70 percent improvement, so until we get a clearer picture of the global pre-order situation from an official (or even an unofficial) source, we're left assuming that the "double-digit increase" is a lot closer to 10 or 20 percent, at least for now.
Naturally, any year-on-year progress is better than no progress, especially in a challenging climate for the mobile industry as a whole. But said mobile industry is widely expected to bounce back to significant growth this year, and with the iPhone 15 family selling like hotcakes for several months already, Samsung is unlikely to be satisfied with just a modest and vague "double-digit" increase in sales in the long run.
That could open a world of money-saving possibilities for Android power users on tight budgets down the line, but of course, it's far too early to think (too much) about that, especially with pre-order promotions technically still available in the US for a few more hours at the time of this writing.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra reigns supreme
If you thought the $1,300 and up Galaxy S24 Ultra would prove prohibitive for the masses, you apparently thought wrong, as the 6.8-inch S Pen-wielding colossus accounted for more than 65 percent of the family's worldwide pre-orders to date.
That's a mind-blowing share considering that the "vanilla" Galaxy S24 and the S24 Plus are themselves no pushovers, earning quite a bit of praise of their own in our hands-on reviews and looking (at least at first glance) fully capable of giving the likes of Apple's non-Pro iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus a run for their money mainstream popularity.
The S24 Ultra's success follows in the footsteps of the S23 Ultra's own advantage over its little brothers, highlighted among others by a top 10 best-selling smartphone list for Q2 2023 where the S23 and S23 Plus were nowhere to be found. Clearly, Samsung is having trouble marketing its non-Ultra high-enders, which could mean serious S24 and S24+ price cuts (with and without strings like trade-ins attached) are right around the corner.
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