If you thought that the long delay might deter consumers from buying the Galaxy Fold, you were mistaken. According to The Korea Herald, Samsung on Friday said that the initial batch of Galaxy Fold units sold out as soon as they went on sale in South Korea this week. Samsung didn’t provide any hard numbers, but industry sources tell the Herald that the first round of preorders through the country’s three major carriers is likely only around 1,000.
As the Herald notes, this estimated figure does not include phones sold directly by Samsung online or in retail stores, so the number is almost certainly higher, though there’s no way to know how much higher.
The Galaxy Fold is obviously operating under a different standard when it comes to sales figures as Samsung has produced significantly fewer Fold units that it did for the Galaxy S10 or Galaxy Note 10 launch. Selling out on launch day is much easier when carriers were only provided a few hundred devices to begin with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ydQoi2VbA
That said, following the debacle that was the initial review period ahead of the original launch in April, the mere fact that customers are turning up to check out Samsung’s experimental device is good news. The Korea Herald reports that a second round of preorders is set to open up on September 18th, and those units will ship on September 26th. The initial volume of Fold units in South Korea is expected to reach 30,000 units.
The big question now is how other markets will respond to the Galaxy Fold. Samsung confirmed on Wednesday that the Fold will launch in the US in the coming weeks, but preorders have yet to kick off. If the first batch in the US is as small as it was overseas, there’s a good chance it will sell out here too, though.
