The Galaxy S22 and Tab S8 launch was the company's most successful smartphone and tablet launch to date, according to Samsung. Pre-orders for the new phones have "more than doubled" compared to the Galaxy S21 series. This corroborates reports from South Korea yesterday, which offered more granular but market-specific numbers.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra drove "more than 60% of sales" — if that is pure unit sales numbers and not some other metric tied to margin (which might vary between models), that means that the most expensive Note-succeeding model was the most popular by far. Given there were nearly two years between Note-like phones, it could simply be that many were waiting for it, but Galaxy S22 Ultra reviews like ours also indicate it's simply a good phone, period, and even the smaller models like the Galaxy S22+ are quite good.
This is good news for Samsung, given its mobile division's issues, suffering a special management review last year as the Galaxy S20 Series, smaller Note20, and S21 series all underperformed. In part, that was probably due to the impact of the pandemic, but Samsung saw a sales decline in 2020 of 14.6% alone, with a further loss of 11% in the premium segment last year, according to Counterpoint.
The company only has pre-order numbers to look at for now, but if it can sustain this level of customer interest and sales, Samsung's S22 series could indicate a turnaround after years of declines, giving it some extra time ahead of bigger folding phone plans.
It's not just the phones that are breaking records, though. Samsung says the Galaxy Tab S8 series pre-orders were more than double compared to the Tab S7, too, with the Tab S8 Ultra selling out worldwide. Given the general popularity of Android tablets, that could be a doubling of an already smallish number, though — Samsung hasn't shared any precise sales metrics.
Both the Galaxy S22 series and Tab S8 series officially "launch" tomorrow. Admittedly, many customers already have their phones and tablets, but this officially means that "pre-order" will change to "buy" at most retailers, and some bonuses like the storage upgrades, carrier promotions, and store credits will get nerfed. If you want any of the pre-order bonuses, you've got about six hours from the time of publication to make a decision.