Samsung Reportedly Sets Lofty 60 Million Sales Target For Galaxy S8

It appears that Samsung has high hopes for the Galaxy S8, especially following the flaming Galaxy Note 7 debacle that put the company in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. In fact, Samsung is reportedly setting its sales goals even higher than with the current Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge.

According to a report out this morning, Samsung expects to sell 60 million Galaxy S8 devices during its lifecycle. That is an incredibly optimistic goal considering the immense pressure that Samsung is feeling from the competition. Not only does Samsung have to compete with Apple in the premium smartphone sector, but Chinese OEMs like Xiaomi and Huawei have been eating Samsung’s lunch by delivering feature-packed flagships with bargain pricing.

One must also consider that Samsung’s best-selling flagship, the Galaxy S4, sold 70 million units. However, the Galaxy S4 didn’t face the same level of competition back in 2013. Both the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy S6 sold around 45 million units, and the Galaxy S7 series has sold around 48 million units to date.

Samsung is going to have to come out with something radical to reach the 60 million-unit benchmark, and it is perhaps hoping that some customers decided to go into a holding pattern following the Galaxy Note 7 disaster and will come back into the fray with the release of the Galaxy S8.

The Galaxy S8 will reportedly be available in screen sizes up to 6 inches and will feature minimal bezels all around (with a screen to body ratio of greater than 90 percent). Samsung is expected to retain the 2560x1440 screen resolution, but will outfit the Galaxy S8 with the new 10nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, USB-C for charging, 6GB (possibly 8GB) of RAM and up to 256GB of onboard storage.

More controversially, the smartphone is expected to ditch its 3.5mm headphone jack, a move that brought ridicule to Apple’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.