Samsung has been enjoying an incredible 2021. The South Korean tech giant currently tops the charts for most phones sold in the planet in 2021, and the extremely successful launch of the third generation of its foldable phones pretty much guarantees Samsung’s dominance in the flagship market at least until next year.
The third generation of foldable phones has been so successful that Samsung had to cancel the Galaxy Note release this year, with various reasons such as chip shortages and avoiding competition against the foldable phones being floated around.
In one of our earlier articles, we already pointed out that Samsung will struggle to price the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE correctly, as its high-end market is already saturated and throwing another device into the mix will only mess up with the demand for the other existing models. This seems to have come to fruition following Samsung’s announcement, as reported by DDaily, a Korean website.
The Korean website reports that the ‘Galaxy S21 Fan Edition Unpacked’ event which was scheduled for mid-October has been cancelled, and the launch of the smartphone is also being reviewed as well.
The Galaxy S21 FE was planned to have been equipped with the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 AP present in the Galaxy S21 series but sold at a lower price by making some changes to the screen and camera.
The Galaxy Z Flip 3 also shares the same processor as the two smartphones above, and its ever-increasing demand has created uncertainty in the supply of system semiconductors.
The direct result is that Samsung can not keep up with the demand for the production of The Galaxy Z Flip 3. Basically, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 is selling so well for production to keep up with orders, making the cancellation of the yet-to-be-released Galaxy S21 FE to be seriously considered.
For this reason, Samsung feels it is the right thing to do, reserving the available chips to prioritize the device that is already selling like hotcakes rather than gambling on a new device that might not meet the expectations of the market.
The Galaxy Z Flip 3 selling so well removes the pricing headache for Samsung but whether the launch of the Galaxy S21 FE is just delayed until the chip shortages are overcome or it is done for good is something we can not tell for sure, until Samsung releases a statement. The best guess, however, is that they will not bother with it, as the launch of the Galaxy S22 series should just be around the corner in the new year.
The foldable phones seem to have breathed life back into the phone lineup, especially those running Android, as they were becoming too boring and “samey”. This is clearly reflected in the demand for the Galaxy Z Flip 3 that had 800,000 pre-orders in the first week alone in Korea.
A good price, aggressive trade-in deals and more sturdy materials for the third generation foldable phones definitely played a part, and the result is Samsung reaping big.
How much time it takes other manufacturers to produce similar devices will be interesting to see, but Samsung has proved the market is present and willing to try new ideas.
