Samsung irrelevant among U.S. teens, most own an iPhone

Concluding updated: Apr 10th, 2020 at 12:07 UTC+01:00

Samsung smartphones announced to exist irrelevant among teenagers in the United States, with the vast majority of them owning an iPhone, and even more than planning to go with Apple for their side by side handset.

New data gathered past Minneapolis-based Piper Sandler suggests the South Korean tech giant is missing out on hundreds of billions worth of annual sales. What's more, Generation Z's indifference with Samsung'due south Android smartphones likewise has alarming implications for the company's long-term operations in the U.S.

Why Samsung should care about U.S. teens

According to the U.South. Department of Health & Human Services, in that location were 41.7 one thousand thousand stateside adolescents in 2016, which amounts to just under 13% of the (legal) population. Even as that demographic is projected to stagnate over the next thirty years, Samsung yet has reasons for concern seeing how this particular age group is a prime target for breeding lifetime customers. Combined with the fact the U.S. is the earth's largest market for premium smartphones, it'south like shooting fish in a barrel to see how Samsung's current failings could snowball into a greater issue down the line.

Not that things aren't already looking dour; the Stock With Teens survey reveals a whopping 85% of American teens currently ain an iPhone and 88% of them intend for that to exist their next smartphone purchase. In terms of directly revenue, that'southward $830 billion in sales, the study estimates, falling dorsum on previous data from Fung Global Retail & Technology. Ultimately, it appears Samsung will have to come up with something better than Fortnite skins if it hopes to improve its prospects with this primal consumer demographic.

While all of that'due south bad news for Samsung Electronics, the bright side is that the conglomerate every bit a whole is still positioned to make money from Apple's domestic say-so given how Samsung Brandish has been a cardinal iPhone supplier ever since the Cupertino-based firm switched to OLEDs in 2017.