Can Samsung Sell 70 Million Galaxy S6 Smartphones?

Sales of Samsung’s flat screen Galaxy S6 and curved display S6 Edge smartphones are exceeding expectations in the first week of sales, according to a company executive.

But whether the Korean mobile device maker can resuscitate its flagging profit picture from the throes of a six-quarter losing streak by hitting its target of 70 million units sold by the end of the year may be another issue entirely.

“The S6 should do well,” Kwon Oh-hyun, Samsung vice chairman told attendees at an affiliates meeting at the vendor’s headquarters in Seoul, Korea, last week as Reuters reported. “The first week looks impressive,’” he said.

In early March, preliminary sales numbers showed 20 million pre-orders for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge with carrier T-Mobile saying it already has sold twice the number of the new phones as it did the earlier Galaxy S5 a year ago.

“Samsung received some 20 million pre-orders for the S6 and S6 Edge–15 million of S6 and five million of the S6 Edge from mobile carriers, worldwide,” a European carrier executive told Korean Times. “This is the record.”

Now some forecasts are placing sales estimates for the Galaxy S6 alone north of 45 million units for 2015. And, the vendor is expected to boost its production yields for the handset to about 8 million units a month starting in May.

But so far no analyst has ventured in the 70 million unit territory Samsung is expecting.

Still, optimism is running high. “We expect 70 million plus,” a Samsung executive told the Korea Times at the company meeting and another said “we are back on track.”

Two weeks ago, Samsung said it expects its Q1 2015 earnings to slip again, this time for the sixth consecutive quarter with a 31 percent year-over-year decline to 5.9 trillion won or about $5.4 billion. The expected loss closely mirrors Samsung’s Q4 2014 performance when its profit fell 27 percent to 5.3 trillion won or $4.8 billion, from the prior year.

The Korean device maker, which will release its full earnings report later this month, is looking to the smartphones to recoup some of its losses.

“There have been a lot of reports about earnings forecasts for Samsung Electronics,” said Lee Joon, Samsung Future Strategy Office chief communications officer. “It’s fair to say that we will report improved profits during the January-March period.”