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Samsung has reportedly set a pretty high Galaxy S25 series sales target, but is it realistic?

By Adrian Diaconescu

Published: Feb 06, 2025, 8:03 AM

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Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Galaxy S25 Plus

If you're feeling underwhelmed by the Galaxy S25 family's rather modest upgrades or outright disillusioned with some of the downgrades and compromises we're still discovering well after Samsung's January 22 Unpacked event, the company certainly hopes you'll remain in the minority of prospective buyers.

Otherwise, the shipment goal presumably set prior to that aforementioned announcement is unlikely to materialize, especially with the Galaxy S24 trio still around and still going strong at the global box-office and the smallest member of that ultra-high-end handset family permanently discounted in the US.

$399 ⁹⁹

$1419 ⁹⁹

$1020 off (72%)

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is officially here! You can now pre-order the mighty Samsung flagship for up to $1,250+ off at the Samsung Store! Eligible device trade-ins help you save up to $900, and you also get a $120 free storage upgrade. Additionally, you get up to $350 Samsung Credits.

Pre-order at Samsung

$299 ⁹⁹

$999 ⁹⁹

$700 off (70%)

The exciting Galaxy S25 Plus has finally been revealed. Pre-orders are now open, and you can pre-order a unit for up to $700 off at the Samsung Store with eligible trade-ins. There's an additional $100 Samsung Credit available, which includes your Reservation Gift.

Pre-order at Samsung

40 million phones is a lot of phones

If you want to wax philosophical, any number can be described as big or small depending on one's perspective and terms of comparison. But while 40 million units may feel like a drop in the ocean when considering that roughly 1.2 billion (with a "b") smartphones were sold in total around the world last year, that's an unquestionably tall order for a single 2025 model... or three.

For context, it was recently reported that Samsung managed to ship a little over 37 million Galaxy S24, S24 Plus, and S24 Ultra copies altogether between January and December 2024, thus improving the first-year tally of the early 2023-released Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra by six million units or so.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24

The Galaxy S24 family has been a huge hit around the world. | Image Credit -- PhoneArena

That's a large and somewhat unexpected year-on-year progress of close to 20 percent, so further boosting that figure by almost 10 percent to around 40 million units for the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra this year seems... pretty hard to pull off.

Is it impossible? Probably not, but Samsung isn't making its mission any easier to complete with all the conflicting info regarding the S25 Ultra's S Pen functionality or the sky-high prices of the Galaxy S25 family as a whole. Of course, things could have been even worse on the pricing front, which doesn't change the fact that those launch deals may need to be improved before long.

Free storage upgrades, store credit, gift cards, and massive discounts with eligible trade-ins are all nice and everything, but some outright price cuts with no strings attached and no questions asked would be even better for a lot of prospective buyers in the US.

Will the Galaxy S25 Ultra prove the most successful member of the new trio?

Most likely, and that's not just based on my gut feeling. Of those 37.17 million S24 series phones shipped in 2024, 16.82 million were apparently super-premium Ultras, with the base model accounting for a nice 13.2 million chunk of that total too and the Plus reportedly selling in just a little over 7 million copies.

A somewhat similar split was noticed in South Korea during the first few days of Galaxy S25 series pre-orders, with the Ultra accounting for no less than 52 percent of the family's early record-breaking numbers. What's perhaps a bit odd about these figures coming out of Samsung's homeland is that they put the S25 Plus unexpectedly close to the "vanilla" S25.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is likely to outsell its little brothers. | Image Credit -- PhoneArena

That's probably just a regional thing, mind you, with the compact Galaxy S25 still looking very likely to heavily outsell the Plus variant on a global scale while not being able to threaten the supremacy of the Ultra model.

It's also hard to believe that Samsung will crush any other Galaxy S24 records anywhere else besides Korea, but even if the S25 roster ends up meeting the company's 40 million worldwide sales expectations, that should be celebrated as a solid achievement... for a rather unremarkable-looking handset trio. Of course, that remains a pretty big "if."

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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.