The manufacturer may not see the numbers and sales that it wants when the Galaxy S5 is released.
Although Samsung Electronics is still hoping for the best for the launch of its Galaxy S5 smartphone in its home country of Korea, these flagship mobile devices may not receive the ideal start following their April launch as it will be occurring at the same time as a 45 day long ban that will stop carriers from selling cell phones.
The global sales of the Galaxy S5 are slated to start on April 11, despite Korea’s ban on phone sales.
Typically, when Samsung Electronics launches its mobile devices, South Korea is one of the very first countries to be able to get its hands on them. This is particularly true of the top of the line models. However, last Friday, the country’s communications regulator placed a ban on the sale of smartphones by SK Telecom Co. Ltd., LG UPlus Corp, and KT Corp when signing up customers and replacing devices at the same time. This ban will run from tomorrow (March 13), to May 19.
Samsung still intends to go ahead with the release of its mobile devices, despite this setback.
It is certainly not creating an ideal environment for Samsung, within the country of its company headquarters, as the competition there is fierce, and carriers are battling for their own share of a market in which approximately seventy percent of people already have a smartphone device. These carriers had previously broken the country’s regulations by providing a subsidy of over $250 for the cost of a new handset when registering a new customer.
Equally, it has been pointed out that while Samsung does like to launch its products first to its own home market, the Korean marketplace actually comprises a pretty small piece of the overall smartphone sales by the manufacturer. The issue is that the first three months of the launch are typically critical in ensuring that they will be able to achieve the maximum possible sales for their devices.
As the release of these latest mobile devices, the Galaxy S5s, is smack in the middle of the ban, this will take away about a third of that vital opportunity.
