Sales of Samsung flagships are reportedly surging, despite an overall dip

What you need to know

• Findings from Hana Securities show that Samsung's overall smartphone sales in January decreased 1% year-over-year.
• However, sales of Samsung's flagship models are growing. The Galaxy S23 series strongly outperformed the Galaxy S22 series over a one-year period. 
• Early reports indicate that the just-released Galaxy S24 series will build upon the Galaxy S24 series' success.

Samsung has suffered a few blows to its overall smartphone sales recently, but the company looks to be making a comeback at the start of 2024. While overall smartphone shipments were slightly down last month for Samsung, sales for the company's flagship phones are surging. That's according to data from Hana Securities, as leaker Revegnus shared on X (formerly Twitter). 

The data centered around Samsung's smartphone sales as of January 2024, measured in units shipped. Overall, the report states that Samsung shipped one percent fewer smartphones in January 2024 compared to January 2023. The company sold 17.44 million phones last month, according to the data from Hana Securities.

Initially, that might seem disappointing because the smartphone market appears to be growing. While we don't have global shipment figures for January 2024 yet, a separate report from Counterpoint Research found that the global smartphone market grew by 7% year-over-year. So, at the same time as worldwide phone sales appear to be rising, Samsung phone sales are slightly dipping. 

However, Samsung's flagship phones are performing well, which is a reason to be optimistic. The just-released Samsung Galaxy S24 series already sold 1.42 million units by the end of January. Unsurprisingly, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is the most popular model, with 830,000 units sold. Samsung didn't make many changes to the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ models, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra is firmly one of the best phones available. 

Revegnus suspects that the Galaxy S24 series is finding success due to its suite of artificial intelligence features. Aside from all the Galaxy AI tools, the new Circle to Search feature from Google shipped alongside the Galaxy S24 lineup.

The Galaxy S24 series has only been out for a little over a month, so it's hard to gauge its true success at this point. However, the data from Hana Securities includes positive results for the Galaxy S23 series from the previous year. Over a one-year period, the Galaxy S23 lineup sold 31.11 million units, per the report. That is 24% higher than sales of the Galaxy S22 were over a one-year period. 

Samsung is the biggest Android phone manufacturer, so the company's success is critical to the entire operating system's success. If these latest figures are any indication, Samsung's flagship phones appear to be gaining popularity.

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