Samsung’s busy 2021 launches an early Unpacked … and new gadgets

An extensive folding range. More 5G phones. Smarter gadgets. Computers, TVs, household appliances and a number of other appliances. Maybe even lower prices. After a crazy 2020, the coming year could be one of Samsung’s busiest yet.

To take advantage of the 2021 opportunity, the South Korean company needs to be more courageous to regain its status as an innovation powerhouse, while also living up to its promises to make consumers’ lives easier.

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

“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 foldable, so this groundbreaking category is more accessible to everyone. “It’s almost certainly the lower priced code, which could lure consumers to what are currently cheap devices. The Galaxy Z Fold 2 sells for $ 2,000, while the Galaxy Z Flip with 5G costs $ 1,450.

Samsung can keep the older generations of its foldable products at lower prices, as well as introduce new and cheaper designs as it tries to help the devices out of their small niche. Yet in 2021, its competitors, such as LG, will go beyond just folding screens. LG is expected to launch a phone with a scrolling screen, similar to his role TVs.

Samsung will have to make sure that it does not overwhelm buyers with too many choices. One way to do this is by trimming his phone setup. As it expands foldable options, Samsung may also kill the Galaxy Note.

“It’s hard for Samsung to justify the Galaxy S21 and a Note 21 if they are very similar on the outside,” said Ken Analytics’ analyst at Strategy Analytics. “If the market for ultra-premiums [phones] limited and you do not want to confuse it with too many of these products, it seems that the Note series is the best to cut. ‘

Samsung’s Note has been struggling to stand out for the past few years. When the big screen devices started in 2011, they created a new category of devices that spread the line between tablets and smartphones. So-called phablets are first mocked and then copied. The phablet category no longer exists and it is almost impossible to buy a phone with a small screen. Apple’s iPhone SE is one notable exception.

Samsung’s Note, along with the largest possible display, also had two other selling points: it has an S Pen stylus and contains the best possible specifications. When Samsung’s first foldable, the Galaxy Fold, debuted in 2019, the Note series no longer had the brightest components or largest screen. The Note’s main distinction from Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S series and its Galaxy Z foldable has become the stylus.

In his blog post, Roh noted that Samsung’s excited to add a portion of it [the Note’s] the most beloved features on other devices in our range. ‘It may be a hint that the stylus is coming to the Galaxy S21, removing the last distinction for the Note.

Smarter gadgets?

In previous years, Samsung had one of the largest booths – and the most flashy press conferences – at CES. In 2020, the most exciting news of the program was a mysterious artificial intelligence company created by a Samsung CEO, and its “artificial people” from Neon originated from Samsung Technology and Advanced Research Labs (STAR Labs) before Neon became its own company. Although the technology was not included with Samsung products, Neon made a splash.

Samsung also had a cute robot named Ballie on show. The idea was that the robot, which looks like a large tennis ball, should serve as a companion who follows its owner and responds to commands. At CES 2019, Samsung showcased four different types of robots to consumers.

Like almost all major technology companies, Samsung pushes a lot in artificial intelligence. The technology, which enables devices to act independently, is considered to be the next big computer wave – the way we will communicate with our devices in the future. Instead of sweeping over our phone screens, we will talk to our devices or to listening microphones around our homes and offices. The ultimate promise for AI is to predict what you want before you ask for it.

Samsung’s biggest push with AI in its devices revolved around its Bixby voice assistant, which first arrived in 2017’s Galaxy S8. The digital assistant has since made her way to smart TVs, refrigerators, washers, air conditioners, speakers and more. Samsung previously aimed to place Bixby voice controllers in every device it sells by 2020. But the company did not talk much about Bixby over the past year, and the technology is considered to lag behind Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant and Apple’s Siri. The Galaxy Home smart speaker Samsung started talking about three years ago has not become a real product.

Instead, Samsung seems to have used its AI efforts for behind-the-scenes features, such as enhanced camera technology, or in robots that wow the public little else. Ballie was possibly the cutest example of Samsung’s AI print, but the company said nothing more about the robot. (Similarly, Neon could have been popular because people stayed home during the pandemic, but it is not available to consumers.) Samsung may use its press conference CES 2021 to showcase more robots, though it may be better served and focus on how these devices work well together.

Roh said in his blog post in mid-December that Samsung has more ahead in 2021 for artificial intelligence for mobile devices. The company worked hard to expand highly advanced AI capabilities on the device within the Galaxy family so that we could continually build devices. learn from daily activities and routines to take better photos and videos, maximize battery life and storage, optimize screens and much more, ‘Roh wrote. “We plan to extend these personalized capabilities to every facet of Galaxy’s product portfolio to empower people to be productive and do all the things they enjoy.”

Now Samsung has to fulfill its new offer promise.