Samsung Electronics Co., South Korea’s leading smartphone manufacturer, is confident of better sales in its new Galaxy S7 flagship series than the previous model based on the stronger-than-expected pre-orders for the new phone that hit stores on Friday, said Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung Electronics’ mobile communication division.

“Pre-orders (for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge) are beyond our expectations…I cannot give you exact figures, but we are certain they will do better than the previous model,” he said in a Media Day event held at the Shilla hotel in Seoul on Thursday.

The event was held a day before the official launch of the latest model of its flagship Galaxy S smartphone series.

The world’s leading smartphone maker is aspiring to recover the dominant position in the Chinese market it relinquished to Chinese rivals with its advanced premium phone.

“It had been a hard battle over the last year. We studied what went wrong and discovered that the role of local wireless carriers and retailers was as important as the product quality,” he said

The Korean company gave away its top spot to China’s Xiaomi Technology Co. in the third quarter of 2014 for the first time after almost four years of remaining as the market leader. Last year, Samsung Electronics’ market share in the populous country fell to below fifth place.

According to U.S. market analysis firm Strategy Analytics, China’s tech firm Huawei Technologies took the No.1 spot in the Chinese smartphone market in the fourth quarter of last year with 15.2 percent, followed by Xiaomi with 14.8 percent, Apple Inc. with 13.1 percent, Vivo Electronics with 10 percent, and Oppo Electronics with 9.2 percent. Samsung Electronics was categorized as “others” after falling out from the top 5 rank.

With the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, however, Samsung Electronics is hoping to gain back its market share in China.

Samsung Electronics met with local wireless carriers and retailers ahead of its release of S7 series, he said.

Koh is confident the new phones with the virtual reality (VR) function added will serve as the impetus for the Galaxy’s rise.

“VR is the new platform for the future. It is no longer futuristic technology, but already applicable in various fields. Its application could become infinite after 5G commercialization,” he said.

“The form of how people store and re-experience memories will fundamentally change through taping with 360-degree images and videos," he said.

He called his Samsung wireless troops the “21st century craftsmen of electronics” who turned out a phone unmatchable in design and functionality with waterproof and dustproof feature on top of large-capacity battery and memory and digital single-lens reflect camera.

According to Koh, the company also visited other countries including Iran, the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, France, and Italy to meet with partnering firms for their evaluation of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge before the official release.

By Cho Hee-young

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