Samsung also plans to meet local demand for its flagship smartphones through local manufacturing from its Noida plant.
“We have received almost 1,40,000 pre-books of the Galaxy S23 series within the first 24 hours of opening up pre-bookings,” Raju Pullan, senior vice president, Samsung India, said.
An average of Rs 1 lakh for each unit adds up to almost Rs 1,400 crore of pre-booked devices in less than 24 hours, he said.
This comes on the back of a 1.5 times increase in marketing spends and retail expansion by the Korean brand, Pullan said.
While the latest flagship smartphones are a tad more expensive than the previous generation, Samsung is sweetening the deal with affordability schemes, bundled ecosystem products and cashbacks.
Its proprietary financing scheme, which Pullan said, has the lowest delinquency ratios in the industry, is the driving factor behind record pre-orders, and has been extended to almost 18,000 pin codes, from 12,000 last year, covering almost 60,000 stores from 40,000 last year. Samsung also announced local manufacturing of its Galaxy S23 series from Day 1 at its Noida factory. Local demand will be fulfilled through manufacturing this year, a first for the brand. The company has also been manufacturing the foldable Z series in India from Q4, 2022.
The local manufacturing of its flagships will ensure the products are available across all regions from the first day of the sale, with no shortfall, Pullan said.
Samsung expects to grow in double-digits in the premium segment this year, outperforming the industry average, on the back of strong pre-orders for the flagship smartphone as well as its other premium offerings.
