The South Korean tech giant announced late on Friday that more customers in the US have pre-ordered the Galaxy Note 8 than any other Note version the company has ever sold during the same time period. Samsung started taking pre-orders for the Galaxy Note 8 in the US on August 24, and the device is one of the company's most expensive smartphones ever, costing as much as $930 for the base model with 64GB storage.
Samsung, however, tried to offset the price tag with some pre-order deals offering free gifts like a Gear 360, DeX dock, SDcard and wireless charger. Owners of the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7 were also offered a steep discount if they traded in their current device for the Note 8 while carriers like T-Mobile also had their own set of offers to entice customers to sign up for a new device.
Samsung's announcement came hours after media reports from South Korea said that the company had received around 395,000 pre-orders for the Galaxy Note 8 in its home country. The figure easily outnumbered the Galaxy Note 7, which managed to draw in 380,000 pre-orders over a 13-day period, before being discontinued.
Samsung is now preparing to launch the Galaxy Note 8 in India on September 12. The pre-order process has already been started in the country, which currently the world's fastest-growing smartphone market.
There was also a huge pent-up demand for a new Note after Samsung discontinued the Galaxy Note 7 last year for battery explosions. In addition, there are many Galaxy Note 4 owners who are now eagerly waiting for an upgrade while the Note 5 owners are also entering their two-year upgrade cycle, especially in the absence of the Note 7.
Despite extreme similarities between the Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S8+, the record-breaking initial sales for the former prove that the Note brand is still going strong. Although Samsung didn't relay exact pre-order numbers, it's safe to assume that nothing has discouraged Note fans from upgrading, not even the expensive price tag, or a daunting past experience.
