Last week Samsung announced their next flagship phones, the Galaxy S6 and its curved-display variant the Galaxy S6 Edge. Now Samsung reports that they already recieved 20 million orders for the new phones - 15 million for the S6 and 5 million for the S6 Edge. Note that these orders are from mobile carriers, not from final customers.
Following the disappointing sales of the Galaxy S5, Samsung really needs these new phones to succeed, and the focus in these new models was on look and feel - of both the hardware and the software. Samsung says that the response to the S6 is "far better" than it was for the S5.
If those numbers are correct, it is very interesting that the S6 Edge is so popular. In the Netherlands, for example, the first country to actually get real orders for the new phones, the S6 (32-Gb) costs â¬700 ($760 USD) while the S6 Edge costs â¬850 ($921 USD). So people are willing to pay $161 for a phone that is more unique and looks better (the added curved functionality is minimal at best).
I speculated last week whether Samsung will have enough flexible OLED capacity to support massive GS6 Edge volume. The company's current flexible OLEDs are made in a 5.5-Gen line with a capacity of only 8,000 substrates per month - which is about 1 million 5" displays or so. Of course that line is also used for R&D and to support Samsung's wearable products and the Galaxy Note Edge.
At least according to my calculations, they will not be able to support more than 7-8 million S6 Edge phones during 2015 from that 5.5-Gen line. Samsung is finishing a new 6.5-Gen flexible OLED fab - and hopefully it will start production soon and will enable the company to fulfill those S6 orders later in 2015.
