Last week Samsung held an event to mark the global unveiling of its new Galaxy S23 series of devices, with local pre-orders for the new flagship phones going live on the same night. Samsung also revealed its quarterly report last week too, with phone sales dipping despite setting a record for revenue in Q4 2022.

Bystanders may assume that this trend will continue throughout 2023 too, but according to Samsung Mobile South Africa, the local appetite for flagship phones shows no signs of dying down any time soon.

This as the company made some bold predictions for the rest of the year, with interest in phones climbing four percent locally, but perhaps more interestingly, that the South African premium flagship segment is anticipated to double.

How is the local arm of the South Korean outfit so confident? Well, we recently spoke with Zahir Cajee, MX lead for product and commercial management at Samsung South Africa, for a bit more insight on the subject, and why the company believes the S23 series could be its best-selling S lineup to date.

“In the South African market there is still a massive portion of 2G and 3G migration to 4G, which will push growth across the segments for 2023,” Cajee explained in reference to the four percent prediction.

“There are also alternative methods of payment coming into play. The banking sector is getting involved, and the likes of Mobicred. Customers are also looking to take advantage of better technology, and perhaps hold onto their phone for a longer period of time, so we have seen the growth come through from last year in the South African market, and we’re expecting much of the same,” he added.

To offer up some context as to the local appetite for premium flagship phones, Samsung confirmed that last year’s S22 Ultra, accounted for nearly half of all S22 series sales in SA. While Samsung did not share a precise figure, it does point to a desire for the best in range by many of its local customers.

This is but one aspect driving the company’s predictions for the rest of the year. The other is the aforementioned pre-order deals, which bundle a Samsung tablet for as long as the deals run until 6th March. Added to this, is the trade-in exchange, where Samsung will knock the price off of the new S23 device for the old phone that customers bring in.

This figure usually tops out at R10k, but depends heavily on the condition of the phone you wish to exchange.

“Pre-orders have seen a big factor for the growth in this segment. Speaking to the S23 series, trade-ins make the new phones for better value for money. It helps to create far more accessibility and affordability. It will be over a limited period of time, so there will be a lot of consumers wanting to take advantage of this offer,” Cajee points out.

These are two of the driving factors for the uptake of the S23 series, not to mention the impending drop in the price of the base model S22 series, which too will help boost premium flagship phone sales locally, according to Samsung.

With Cajee also hinting at the upcoming release of a new Galaxy A series helping to further improve its local market share, it looks like Samsung is signalling its intent fairly early. Either way, it will be interesting to see whether the Ultra model accounts for half of S23 sales in SA, as its predecessor did.