Two notes, both dated 30 March 2017

Before the official China launch, two Korean brokers published notes on the same day, 30 March 2017. Hana Financial Investment titled its report Galaxy S8 Unveiling: Edge on All Models and a Change in Design. It paid most attention to the display: a dual-edge screen and very thin top and bottom bezels enlarged the panel mainly in length, so the width of the phone did not grow much. Other hardware changes named were a higher-resolution front camera and an iris-recognition module. For the year, Hana forecast 40 million units. The S7 had sold 48 million, so the figure looked slightly conservative, though the note added that buyers drawn by the new design might still push sales above it. Investment in component suppliers was still seen as a valid idea, but many of those share prices were already reflecting the story, and the direction would depend on how the S8 actually sold.

Dongbu Securities, on the same day, published a note titled Galaxy S8, the King's Return. It read the phone in the wake of the Note 7 episode, and described a redesigned device with a larger aspect ratio and an improved grip. A very thin bezel, the Bixby assistant, and a new high-performance processor were named as points to watch. A Korean launch date of 21 April was mentioned. Dongbu also noted that Samsung's share price had been moving slowly in the low two-million-won range, and that vitality would depend on S8 sales. That share price, like the unit forecasts, is left in 2017.

A China launch, priced and shared as of 2017

On 24 May 2017, according to the electronics trade, Samsung officially launched the Galaxy S8 in China, in an effort to recover pride after the previous year's Note 7. The company was then first in the global smartphone market and, in China, only in single digits, outside the top five. A gold color not sold in Korea — maple gold, alongside midnight black, orchid gray, and coral blue — was added for Chinese buyers who favored gold. Marketing was described as heavier than for any previous Samsung phone, with a tie-up with Suning, then called China's largest home-appliance retailer, and a Chinese-language version of Bixby, planned to search places, images, and wine, and to offer shopping, together with local online services.

The China S8 was priced at 5,688 to 6,188 yuan, about 930,000 to 1,010,000 won, close to the Korean list price. A slightly lower China price had been expected, because local firms such as Huawei and Oppo were pressing the market with cheaper phones. Samsung, the account says, chose to keep the Korean price and to compete head-on with a premium strategy. The phone was selling well in Korea and the United States; whether it would do as well in China was left uncertain. All of those prices, shares, and forecasts are left in 2017. They are not updated, and they are not treated as a picture of the market today.

Sources

1. a mid-2017 comparison of Hana Financial Investment and Dongbu Securities notes dated 30 March 2017 on the Galaxy S8, with the official China launch on 24 May 2017, a then single-digit China share, China prices of 5,688 to 6,188 yuan, and Hana's in-year forecast of 40 million units, all left in 2017.

Last updated: 14 November 2026