Samsung Galaxy S23 to land in Japan to take on iPhone

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s top smartphone maker, will launch its flagship Galaxy S23 series in Japan later this month to compete with Apple iPhones in Asia’s second-largest consumer market.

Samsung will officially introduce its latest premium mobile phone equipped with a state-of-the-art camera and more powerful processor on April 26 there, according to industry sources in Seoul on Wednesday. The South Korean tech giant plans to sell both its basic model Galaxy S23 and the top-tier Galaxy S23 Ultra in Japan.

The company is scheduled to hold an online unpack event for the Galaxy S23 series on Thursday on its website for Japan while opening in Osaka a Galaxy Studio, an offline shop to offer customers a product experience, for the first time in four years. It will open such shops in the form of pop-up stores in major cities such as Tokyo, Nagoya and Fukuoka.

The Galaxy S23 series, including those two models and the Galaxy S23 Plus unveiled in February, is currently available in South Korea, the US and other major markets.

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The Galaxy S23 and the Galaxy S23 Ultra will be sold with the Samsung logo, which the company has not been using to sell smartphones in Japan since 2015 when it launched the Galaxy S6 models.

The latest models are likely to help Samsung narrow its market share gap of some 45% against Apple Inc. in Japan, industry sources in Seoul said.

“The improving image of Samsung could reduce the differential against Apple to some 40%,” one of the sources said.

Samsung has been struggling in the Japanese smartphone market where Apple is dominating and the country’s customers lean toward domestic brands such as Sony Corp.

But sustained positive reviews of Samsung smartphones have been raising its market share there.

Samsung, which had been the No. 4 smartphone maker in Japan with a market share of 5.2% in 2017, ranked No. 2 last year, doubling its market share to 10.5%, according to research company Strategic Analytics.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.