Samsung has had an incredibly successful 2021, with their 3rd generation foldables selling like hotcakes. This higher than expected sales of the foldables has also caused other unforeseen ‘problems’ which I can only refer to as suffering from success.
The incredible numbers being put up by the Galaxy Fold 3 and the Galaxy Flip 3 meant that the Galaxy Note 21 could not be risked being released this year as it could affect the sales of the foldables. This success of the foldables, coupled with a chip shortage that has been ravaging the electronics industry since the COVID-19 pandemic hit meant that the release of the GalaxyS21 FE, a model which was supposed to be a watered-down version of the Galaxy S21 series, had to be delayed until at least 2022.
The delay until early next year also means that the Galaxy S22 series, which was tipped to release in January 2022, has to be delayed as well, since releasing them together only hurts their sales.
According to a report from FrontPageTech, they claim with authority that the Galaxy S21 FE which had already been rumoured to have been cancelled will be released in 11th January next year, while pre-orders for the Galaxy S22 series will open a month later in the second week of February 2022.
Despite the existence of a one-month gap between the two releases, Samsung will still have to aggressively price the S21FE to attract takers, as a higher price will put most people off and keep them waiting for the new Galaxy S22 Series. Not to mention, the attractive price of the Pixel 6 already makes the high-end market very competitive.
I, personally, can not see how Samsung will successfully juggle the prices of the base Galaxy S22 and the Galaxy S21 FE without hurting the sales of one of them. The smarter play would be cancelling the release of the Galaxy S21 FE, and using its silicon on the yet to be released Galaxy S22 series. Furthermore, buying a lesser version of a series that has already been in existence for almost a year just does not sit right with me, but what do I know eh?
The South Korean company already does its business in a slightly unusual way, releasing their flagships at the start of the year, rather than towards the end of it and taking advantage of the festive season to tempt customers into buying them like what Google has done with their new Pixel 6 line up being released earlier this week.
The Galaxy S22 Series is set to have more features associated with the Note line up if we are to believe the rumour mill, including the S Pen stylus. Although this could also be restricted to the Ultra model as was the case for the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Unlike in the Note series, the S Pen stylus did not come as standard with the S21 Ultra and also did not have a slot for storage in the phone. Whether the Galaxy S22 Ultra will have the stylus integrated like in the Note series and come as standard with the phone will be interesting to see, and would probably signal the end of the Note series line up.
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