Samsung’s busy 2021 begins with early unpacking … and new devices

An expanded folding line. More 5G phones. Smarter gadgets. Computers, televisions, appliances, and many other devices. Maybe even lower prices. After a crazy 2020, the next year could be one of Samsung’s busiest yet.

To seize the opportunity 2021 provides, the South Korean company must be bolder to regain its status as an innovation powerhouse while delivering on its promises to make life easier for consumers.

The company’s head of mobile has already given an idea of ​​what Samsung has in store. Tae-moon Roh, Samsung president and head of mobile communications, said in a mid-December blog post that his company will expand its line of foldable devices and make the devices more “accessible,” probably a polite way of saying cheaper. It will also put more emphasis on camera and video capabilities, and will bring features from its Galaxy Note devices, such as S Pen support, to its upcoming Galaxy S21 phones.

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“We have never believed in a one-size-fits-all mobile experience, and we never will,” Roh said in the blog post. He added that Samsung is working on “revolutionary advancements” in 5G, artificial intelligence and the internet of things to reset the boundaries of what mobile can do and to let consumers “tailor their mobile experiences to fit their lives — not the other way around.” 

If those topics sound familiar,  it’s because Samsung largely targeted the same areas in 2020. Samsung was one of the first companies to dive into 5G and foldables, though those bets haven’t yet paid off. There aren’t enough compelling reasons for consumers to need one of the 20 5G phones Samsung has introduced, and its foldables are too expensive to sell in high numbers. Despite the millions Samsung’s sunk into AI, its devices aren’t much better at talking to each other or interacting with their owners. And though the coronavirus pandemic created the opportunity to put the smart home at the center of everyone’s life, Samsung has been slower than Google and Amazon to make the internet of things a reality. Even with four Unpacked mobile events — Samsung’s flashy product showcases — the company wasn’t top of mind for most consumers in 2020. 

“Samsung was just forgotten for a lot of the time,” Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi said. “It lost a little bit of that cool factor it used to have.” 

In some ways, not being top of mind was good. Samsung didn’t have the problems of Huawei, which faces US sanctions and may soon run out of components for its phones, or the struggles of competing Chinese vendors, wich are dealing with the US trade war. Samsung was never called to testify before the US Congress, no phones exploded, it wasn’t the victim of a major hack and it wasn’t criticized for failing to contain the spread of misinformation.

Still, Samsung’s lineup hasn’t created the buzz that tech products like Apple’s new 5G-enabled iPhone 12 devices have managed to generate. In 2021, the company will have to find a way to capture attention in a world that won’t look like the one when 2020 began. Samsung may get its first chance with an earlier-than-normal Unpacked event that’s expected on Jan. 14, a month ahead of the usual schedule.

A whole new world

Like its competition, Samsung is grappling with the novel coronavirus pandemic and the impact that’s having on consumers. When COVID-19 first started spreading, worries about the illness caused a dramatic slowdown in phone purchases as people around the globe decided the device they had was good enough. Demand eventually recovered as new 5G phones began to hit the market, but not soon enough to boost Samsung’s Galaxy S21 sales. Computers and TVs have been hot items with people stuck at home, and appliances are purchases consumers can put off only so long. Samsung has benefited from surging demand for all of those products.

Samsung has shifted strategy in response to what’s happening. It sped up the development and release of its Galaxy S20 FE, which, at $700, is a cheaper addition to its flagship phone lineup. It also tweaked the sales strategy for devices like the Galaxy Note 20. And it’s benefited from its less expensive Galaxy A Series, which it’s likely to expand this coming year.

In 2021, Samsung plans to expand the lineup of devices crucial to its future, specifically foldables. It will possibly kill off those that don’t fit with its vision, like the Note family. The first glimpses of Samsung’s plans for mobile in 2021 will come at Unpacked.

Samsung is expected to launch three new Galaxy S devices in January. The new S21 models will likely be the 6.2-inch S21, the 6.7-inch S21 Plus and the 6.8-inch S21 Ultra. The devices are expected to look largely the same but have bigger camera modules, boosting their photo and video capabilities. Overall, those devices aren’t expected to be major overhauls from their predecessors.

Unpacked could also mark Samsung’s expansion into new areas, including Tile-like smart trackers. 

Samsung likely won’t shake up pricing for the Galaxy S lineup. But it could make bigger changes with its other devices, including its foldables. 

Hello foldables, goodbye Note?

Samsung, like most tech companies, has struggled to sell its pricey smartphones during the pandemic. While Samsung was one of the first companies to release a phone with 5G, Huawei quickly surpassed it in shipments. The Chinese handset maker became the biggest smartphone vendor in the world in the second quarter, the first time in nine years that Samsung or Apple hadn’t held the title. 

Samsung will try to claw back ground, and US sanctions against Huawei will help it do so. Samsung overall regained ground in the third quarter to again become the top smartphone vendor as Huawei struggled to survive.

The Korean company’s 2021 phone lineup may offer more price points, including more affordable foldables. Roh said the company is “expanding [its] portfolio of foldable products, so this innovative category is more accessible to everyone. “It is almost certainly a code for lower prices, which could help attract consumers to what are currently devices that break the The Galaxy Z Fold 2 retails for $ 2,000, while the Galaxy Z Flip with 5G costs $ 1,450.

Samsung could keep older generations of its foldable devices at lower prices, as well as introduce newer and cheaper designs as it tries to help the devices break out of their little niche. Still, rivals like LG will go beyond folding screens in 2021. LG is expected to showcase a phone with a roll-up screen, similar to your roll-up televisions.

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Samsung will have to make sure it doesn’t overwhelm buyers with too many options. One way to do this is by cutting your phone line. As it expands the foldable options, Samsung might as well do away with the Galaxy Note.

“It’s hard for Samsung to justify the Galaxy S21 and a Note 21 when they apparently look very similar,” said Strategy Analytics analyst Ken Hyers. “If the ulta-premium market [phones] it’s limited and you don’t want to cram it with too many of these products, the Note series seems to be the one that made the most sense to cut. “

Samsung’s Note has struggled to stand out for the past few years. When big screen devices debuted in 2011, they created a new category of devices that stretched between tablets and smartphones. First they made fun of the so-called phablets and then they copied themselves. Now the phablet category is no more, and it is almost impossible to buy a phone that comes with a small screen. Apple’s iPhone SE is a notable exception.

Aside from packing in the largest display possible, Samsung’s Note had two other selling points: It came with an S Pen stylus and featured the highest-end specs possible. When Samsung’s first foldable, the Galaxy Fold, debuted in 2019, the Note line no longer had the flashiest components and the biggest display. The main differentiator of the Note from Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S line and its Galaxy Z foldables became the stylus.

In his blog post, Roh noted that Samsung is “excited to add some of [the Note’s] More appreciated features for other devices in our lineup. ”That could be a hint that the stylus is coming to the Galaxy S21, removing the last differentiator from the Note.

Smarter gadgets?

In previous years, Samsung has had one of the largest booths and flashiest press conferences at CES. In 2020, the most talked about news on the show was a secret artificial intelligence company created by a Samsung executive, and its Neon “artificial humans” emerged from Samsung Technology and Advanced Research Labs (STAR ​​Labs) before Neon became in your own company. Although the technology was not included in any Samsung product, Neon caused a sensation.

Samsung also had a cute robot, named Ballie, at the show. The idea was for the robot, which looks like a large tennis ball, to serve as a companion to follow its owner and respond to orders. At CES 2019, Samsung showcased four different types of robots for consumers.

Like almost every major tech company, Samsung is giving artificial intelligence a big push. Technology, which gives devices a certain ability to act on their own, is seen as the next big wave in computing – the way we will interact with our devices in the future. Instead of sliding our finger on the screens of our phone, we will talk with our devices or with microphones that always listen in our homes and offices. The ultimate promise for AI is predicting what you want before asking.

Samsung’s biggest push with AI in its devices has revolved around its Bixby voice assistant, which first arrived on the 2017 Galaxy S8. The digital assistant has came to smart TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, speakers and more. Previously, Samsung aimed to put Bixby voice controls on all the devices it sells by 2020. But the company He hasn’t talked much about Bixby over the past year, and the technology is seen to lag behind Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri. The Galaxy Home smart speaker that Samsung started talking about three years ago has not materialized as a real product.

Instead, Samsung appears to have put its artificial intelligence efforts into features that work behind the scenes, such as improved camera technology, or robots that wow audiences, but little else. Ballie was arguably the cutest example of Samsung’s AI push, but the company hasn’t said anything else about the robot. (Similarly, Neon might have proven popular as people stayed home during the pandemic, but it is not available to consumers.) Samsung could use its CES 2021 press conference to showcase more robots, although it would be better focused on how its devices work well together.

Roh, in his mid-December blog post, said that Samsung will have the most advantage in artificial intelligence for mobile devices in 2021. The company has been “working hard to expand the highly advanced artificial intelligence capabilities on the device within the family. Galaxy, enabling our devices to continually learn from daily activities and routines to take better photos and videos, maximize battery life and storage space, optimize displays and much more, “wrote Roh. “We are planning to expand these customized capabilities to every facet of the Galaxy product portfolio to empower people to be productive and do all the things they enjoy.”

Now Samsung has to make its new offering live up to that promise.