Freebies galore.
Samsung has always heavily promoted its Galaxy smartphones—the models sold as good-enough alternatives to Apple’s iPhones. But according to Kantar’s Lauren Guenveur, they outdid themselves with the models that came out at the end of February.
“The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge appears to be one of the most heavily promoted phones, ever,” she writes. “If you ordered an S7 before March 18th, you got a Gear VR and six VR games for free. AT&T and T-Mobile offered ‘buy one, get one free’ deals for a time. Best Buy included a Gear VR and a 64gb SIM card with the purchase of an S7. For purchasers of the S7 at Costco this month, they’ll get a 32-inch Samsung HD TV. And that’s barely scraping the surface of the promotions and trade-ins available for this device.”
Samsung also got the specs right, says Guenveur. They made sustaining improvements in battery life, camera quality and speed. And they replaced the removable storage, a popular feature dropped from the S6 series.
The Galaxy S7 series sold much better in the U.S. than the S6 did in the last weeks of its March quarter, and is on track to become the June quarter’s best-seller, says Guenveur.
Sammy is so desperate to wear the smartphone sales crown they’d give cars away if they made them. At some point, Sammy’s lack of smartphone profits will prevent them from delivering competitive, quality handsets in the future.
Samsung has pulled the wool over customer’s eyes for years, and continues to do so. A huge deal has been made over the S7’s being waterproof. It isn’t. In fact, it’s really not much more water resistant than the iPhone 6s. Here’s the proof:
http://blog.squaretrade.com/galaxy-s7-s7-edge-water-resistant-yes-sidewalk-resistant-no/
And compared to the ruggedness of the 6s, the Edge is a joke.
Still, much will be made of the s7 taking the lead over the 6s. And little if any mention will be made of the huckstering that gave it that temporary status.
In the long run, though, the s7 will disappoint many people. Not so the 6s.
Since the S6 did not launch until April, of course the S7 outsold the S6 in the March quarter. Flickr data shows the S7 levels at 2 months of sales below what the S6 did at 2 months. It’s just one data point, but not a good one for the S7.