Samsung's launch of its new flagship artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled Samsung Galaxy S24 series of smartphones will stimulate demand for premium smartphones in the first quarter this year in Thailand and is expected to result in a rebound in the local smartphone market in 2024, according to IT analysts.
Samsung Electronics Co on Wednesday unveiled the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Galaxy S24+ and Galaxy S24. The starting price of the Galaxy 24 is 33,900 baht, the S24+ is 38,900 baht and the S24 Ultra costs 46,900 baht.
"The Galaxy S24 series transforms our connection with the world and ignites the next decade of mobile innovation," said TM Roh, president and head of Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics.
The Galaxy S24 series includes Live Translate, which provides a two-way, real-time voice and text translation of phone calls within a native app. No third-party apps are required, and on-device AI keeps conversations completely private.
With the Interpreter feature, live conversations can be instantly translated with a split-screen view so people standing opposite each other can read a text transcription of what the other person has said. It even works without cellular data or a Wi-Fi connection.
These models are on pre-order now.
Apirat Ratanavichit, market analyst for client device at IT research house IDC, said Samsung has brought in some interesting new features to its Galaxy range supported by AI, and this would spark new interest in its premium smartphones.
The integration of AI features to enhance the user's everyday experience will be a very unique selling point in the Thai market, Mr Apirat added.
Smartphone manufacturers have been using AI-supported features in their smartphones for a few years now, but a lot of it was happening 'behind the scenes'.
"Now we expect more to be in the forefront with the user interacting with the tools," Mr Apirat noted.
"We expect AI capabilities to be a push factor in driving smartphone shipments in 2024 and beyond as consumers are driven to new enhancements in photography, text and speech recognition and many more use cases."
AI smartphone momentum should pick up when consumers can access more AI-enabled smartphones across multiple price-points and the technology develops to deliver increasingly compelling use-cases to appeal to a wide range of users. The increased sophistication of hardware and software has enabled many more use cases.
"We expect that demand will be stimulated in the first half of 2024 by the government's Easy E-Receipt programme offering tax rebates on purchases up to 50,000 baht, which has so far sent a positive signal to the consumer devices market in 2024."
Furthermore, the launch of new smartphones in the premium segment will also provide a boost as the high-end market in Thailand has been quite resilient, Mr Apirat said.
Sheng Win Chow, an analyst at global technology market analyst firm Canalys, said the introduction of AI features on Samsung's Galaxy S Series and the availability of more affordable 5G-enabled smartphones priced US$170 and below also provide strong selling points to stimulate demand for smartphones in the country this year.
"The overall market is anticipated to make a comeback in the first half. With smartphone shipments spiking in 2021 at 20.6 million units, we can expect many of those customers to be due to make a device purchase in 2024," Mr Chow said.
However, the overall outlook for the country's smartphone market in 2023 was expected to contract by 6%, dropping from 17 million units in 2022. The decline is attributed to the challenging economic conditions prevailing in the country during that period.
According to Canalys's global forecast, AI-capable smartphones will make up 5% of total smartphone shipments in 2024. it will likely reach 635 million units by 2027, representing 45% of the total smartphone market.
However, in the short-term on-device AI's impact on other smartphone vendors' sales is expected to be limited as it will take time for the vendors to integrate AI-capable hardware into solutions for users to utilise. This year, 70% of on-device AI capabilities would go untapped due to a lack of ability to utilise AI.