Dubai: Samsung’s latest smartphone – Galaxy Note 2 – is making a big splash at the Shopper and the product is out of stock within two days of the launch.
According to Samsung, pre-sale orders for the phone-tablet crossover device outstripped previous Note 1 sales.
“Note 2 was officially launched first in the UAE globally due to the strong demand for smartphones in the region,” Ashraf Fawakherji, general manager of telecommunication group at Samsung Gulf Electronics, told Gulf News.
The Galaxy Note 2 is the much-anticipated successor to the original Galaxy Note, the largest smartphone on the market with a 5.5-inch screen.
He said the Galaxy Note 2 – priced at Dh2,699 for 16GB – is a bigger, beefier and more polished offering than the original Note and is guaranteed to gain traction in the months to come.
“We have already sold around 15,000 units within two days and we expect around three times more demand than the original Note,” Deepak Babani, CEO of Eros Group, the main distributor for Samsung phones in the UAE, said.
“We are facing supply shortage due to strong demand. Many retailers may face a shortage of the handset. We have sold 200 units within one hour at our stand on Saturday,” Fawakherji said.
According to research firm GfK, Samsung occupies a market share of 39 per cent in the phone business and around 40 per cent in the smartphone business in the UAE.
The world’s largest phone manufacturer has already sold 10 million units of Galaxy Note 1 globally as of second quarter.
The original Galaxy Note was criticised by some for being too big for everyday use as a phone, with its large 5.3-inch display creating some obvious ergonomic challenges. Instead of shrinking down the size on the new Note, Samsung has actually bumped up the display to a massive 5.5 inches. Despite the increase in screen real-estate, side-by-side the Galaxy Note 2 is not all that much larger than the original Note.
In addition, the dimensions of the new screen now create a natural 16:9 aspect ratio which is perfect for viewing HD video on the beautiful 1280 x 720 Super Amoled display.
Despite the size, Fawakherji said that more than 50 per cent of the Note users in the UAE are women.
The device is powered by a 1.6 GHz quad-core Exynos processor, backed up with 2GB of internal RAM and 16GB of on-board storage with the ability to expand to 64 GB with a microSD card. It’s also the first Samsung phone to launch with Android Jelly Bean 4.1 right out of the box.
The Note 2 comes with the new S Pen stylus and a whole host of new S Pen features designed to enhance productivity. The stylus itself has been redesigned and is wider and has flatter sides. The tip now generates more friction, a change designed to make the S Pen ‘feel’ more like you’re writing on paper.
The rear camera on the Galaxy Note 2 is essentially the same high-performance 8-megapixel camera from the Galaxy S3, and there’s a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat.
“Samsung’s intention is to widen the lead with its nearest rival with its new product offerings this year and we are confident of that,” Fawakherji said.
