By Hyunjoo Jin
SEOUL/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Samsung Electronics on Wednesday unveiled its new Galaxy S25 smartphones, powered by Qualcomm (NASDAQ 🙂) chips and Google’s AI model, hoping that its enhanced AI features can revitalize sales and defend themselves against Apple (NASDAQ:) and Chinese rivals.
Samsung (KS:) also showed off a slimmer version of the flagship models at the end of an event in California, aiming to launch the Galaxy S25 Edge in the first half of this year ahead of Apple’s anticipated launch of its thinner iPhone .
Samsung was faster than Apple to launch an AI-powered smartphone, but failed to regain its crown in the global smartphone market last year, pressured by competition with the American rival in the premium market and with Chinese companies in the low-end segment.
“We are one step ahead of the industry in terms of offering AI features. I think we are going in the right direction,” Park Ji-sun, executive vice president who heads Samsung’s Language AI team, told Reuters.
Samsung kept the prices of its Galaxy S25 series unchanged between $799 and $1,299.
The new Galaxy S25 uses Gemini offered by Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:) Google as its default AI engine and features Samsung’s improved in-house voice assistant, Bixby, Park said.
The two tools complement each other and Bixby plays a key role at Samsung, whose products range from mobile phones to televisions and home appliances, he said.
Forrester analyst Thomas Husson said differentiating Bixby would be a challenge for Samsung.
“I don’t think there’s really a great app today that you know would convince them (consumers) of, ‘Okay, I’m going to buy this because it’s an AI smartphone,'” he said.
Husson added, however, that AI features could create a halo effect around the Samsung brand.
The Galaxy S25 will offer a more personalized AI experience. For example, its “Now Brief” service, which makes recommendations to users based on personalized data that is stored and processed on the phone for privacy reasons, will display a set of personalized items such as calendars, news and bedroom air temperature and carbon dioxide. levels, Park said.
The phone will be able to perform multiple tasks with a single command, such as searching for upcoming sporting events and then adding them to users’ calendars.
Samsung shares fell 1.1%, lagging the broader market’s 0.4% loss.
Samsung used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform for the entire Galaxy S25 line, abandoning its own Exynos mobile chip, a major change in strategy for a company that previously used both to have more bargaining power with suppliers.
The use of a Qualcomm chip is a setback for the South Korean firm’s chip business, which counts its mobile division as one of its main clients.
Samsung did not say why it decided not to use its own chips in the new model.
A person familiar with the matter said that Samsung is looking to use the Exynos chip in its foldable phones that will be launched later this year.
“The sale of the Galaxy S25 series is important at a time when Samsung’s foldable phone sales have stagnated amid challenges from Chinese companies,” said Lim Su-jeong, associate director at research firm Counterpoint.
Samsung’s preliminary fourth-quarter earnings, released earlier this month, missed estimates by a wide margin due to chip development costs and growing competition in the smartphone market.