Sales Of Galaxy S20 Affected By Corona Virus – Samsung

Samsung has said that the first day sales of their Galaxy S20 series of devices were heavily affected by the Corona Virus.

The S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra were announced earlier this month with the sale commencing in South Korea last Friday. Whilst the Galaxy S10 and Note 10 series managed to sale 140 000 and 220 000 respectively, the S20 series only sold 70 800 units on their first day in their home market.

Samsung isn’t blaming the lower sales on the increased price tag but instead, they believe Covid-19 is the primary cause of their problems:

Sales were affected by sharp declines in discounts for new phones and the number of visitors to offline stores due to coronavirus infection fears

It seems Samsung expected retailers to discount the device at its launch and that just didn’t happen – maybe because retailers assumed there would be less consumers because of the Coronavirus, to begin with.

The Asian country reported 256 new coronavirus cases on Friday morning, bringing the total number of infected people to 2,022 – so it’s not entirely surprising that South Koreans would be hesitant to go to Samsung Stores in their numbers to buy a smartphone.

Samsung’s biggest rival in the smartphone industry, Apple also said they expect their March revenue to fail to meet expectations owing to the fact that their global iPhone supply would be constrained since its manufacturing partner sites are making devices at a slower than usual pace.

Our quarterly guidance issued on January 28, 2020 reflected the best information available at the time as well as our best estimates about the pace of return to work following the end of the extended Chinese New Year holiday on February 10. Work is starting to resume around the country, but we are experiencing a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated. As a result, we do not expect to meet the revenue guidance we provided for the March quarter due to two main factors.
Apple Investor update