SAMSUNG is planning to expand AI features beyond its premium S series phones in the region as it expects the technology to drive growth in the smartphone market in coming months amidst improvements in regional consumer spending.

The South Korea-based electronics giant experienced a 9 per cent growth in smartphone shipments to the Latin American region in the April to June quarter of this year as consumer spending starts to show signs of rebounding after being stymied by continued interest rate adjustments aimed at curbing inflation. In the first quarter of this year, the company’s shipment of mobile devices to the region was down 1 per cent following on from a 13 per cent fallout for all of 2023.

The company, however, now wants to see the growth it recorded in the second quarter sales extending over the rest of the year and is planning to do so by introducing its Galaxy AI technology that is now only available on its flagship S24 range to its mid-range A series mobile devices. Galaxy AI is now only on S24 Ultra, S24+ and S24 models from Samsung.

“We feel that we have really delivered the game-changing experience in terms of AI on the products we offer and the abilities that they open up to our consumers,” Jon Criscione, director of sales at Samsung Electronics Latin America (SELA), told the
Jamaica Observer in an interview from his Miami, Florida, location recently.

Criscione said the company has strong users on the premium end but added that Samsung users on the lower end also want to get the experience of AI-enabled devices which will be available in a few weeks.

“Upcoming very shortly in the October period, Galaxy AI, which is what we call our innovation of AI platform, will be introduced for the first time now officially into our A series. So our A55 and our A35 will be getting our Galaxy AI technology,” he pointed out.

The push from Samsung to bring the Galaxy AI platform to its more budget-friendly A series smartphones follows concerns about the growth in the use of the technology in the region and the pressure it is seeing from new entrants such as China-based Xiaomi, which sells cheaper models.

Xiaomi was Latin America’s second largest smartphone vendor for the very first time in the second quarter of 2024, surpassing Motorola to take 19 per cent of the market, up from 16 per cent last year. Motorola had 20 per cent of the Latin America smartphone market in 2023. Samsung is the biggest seller of smartphones in the region with a 30 per cent market share. In the second quarter of this year, over 33 million mobile devices were sent to the region with 10.5 million of those being Samsung devices.

The top players in the mobile market are looking to strengthen their positioning through AI-driven strategies to seize a greater share of the premium segment, but are also conscious that emerging brands will continue emphasising the importance of affordable value propositions and will look to drive volumes especially to replace devices acquired during the pandemic as they look to drive adoption of AI including in the Caribbean.

“The more it becomes more readily adopted, the more it becomes a benefit to the day in, day out activities of consumers…We have done incredibly well in terms of our flagship launches in the Caribbean, but again, for the Caribbean and all other regions, we understand that there are consumers at different tiers and different levels in terms of their overall mobile capabilities and so what we have to make sure is that we are giving the technology to the different levels of people wherever they fall across the tiers,” Criscione said of the planned roll-out of Galaxy AI on its cheaper A series phones.

But ahead of that launch, Samsung has been taking steps to head off stronger competition from Apple as it prepares to launch its iPhone 16 in the next few weeks by discounting its flagship smartphone, reducing the price by US$200, bringing the Galaxy S24 down to US$1,219.99. The company also plans to launch the S24 FE, which is the entry level device for the S series mobile devices as well as the S10 series premium tablets and the A9 entry level tablets in October.

Criscione said about 25 per cent of the business done by SELA is in the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, while the rest is carried out in the rest of the region with the biggest markets being Mexico and Brazil.

“We do have a very strong Caribbean focus, it is a very important part of our overall business,” he added.

He said the company is also courting more business in Guyana as that country’s economy experiences a boom led by the discovery of oil.

“Guyana is a market that continues to grow exponentially fast and our inhouse market share continues to grow with it,” he said.