Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and S8+ phones are outselling their predecessor models from a year ago by “strong double digit” percentages, even at higher prices, the company said on Monday.
The news offers the first evidence that the Korean electronics giant won’t be further hurt by the Galaxy Note 7 debacle, when exploding devices led to a total recall and cancellation of one of its most popular sellers. Analysts have been debating whether consumers might be reluctant to preorder the next flagship device over fears of a recurrence of the quality control problems that led to dozens of Note 7 models smoking and catching fire due to overheating batteries.
But sales of the S8 line, the first phone that will be capable of reaching gigabit download speeds on U.S. Carriers, are outpacing pre-orders of the 2016 S7 and S7 edge, Samsung said in a statement on Monday. The larger 6.2-inch screen S8+, which starts at a price of $850, has been outselling the 5.8-inch S8 model and midnight black is the most popular color, Samsung said.
Preorders of the phone started at the end of March and are expected to be delivered on April 21. Samsung introduced the phones at a March 29 event in New York, delaying the unveiling from its usual late February blitz at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. After losing billions on the Note 7 recall, Samsung raised the price of the new phones by about $100 per model. And carriers haven’t been offering the same bargains and discounts that they did for the new Apple (AAPL) iPhone 7 back in September.
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The S8 and S8+ smartphones use Qualcomm’s (QCOM) top-of-the-line Snapdragon 835 processor and Google’s (GOOGL) latest Android Nougat software. A physical button on one side triggers the phone’s built in digital assistant, called Bixby.
Samsung said it instituted a series of new checks and controls to prevent any problems with the batteries of the S8 line.
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