Analyst: Carriers Are Ditching This Samsung Best-Seller
One of Samsung’s blockbuster phones is leaving the market with no obvious replacement.
By Sascha Segan
US carriers have dropped one of Samsung’s best-selling phones without providing an obvious replacement in their product lines, a new report from research firm Wave7 says.
The phone in question is the Samsung Galaxy A32, a massive player at AT&T and T-Mobile last year. T-Mobile had stopped selling it in May, and it has just been retired from AT&T’s shelves, Wave7 says.
At $279.99 with long battery life, 5G, and very solid performance, the Galaxy A32 was our major pick for an affordable phone last year. That price put it just in the range where carriers could offer it for free with new lines or other promotions, and the phone was very high quality for the price. Research firm IDC specifically cited the success of Samsung’s Galaxy A12 and A32 as driving the growth of chipmaker MediaTek’s sales in the US.
But although a Galaxy A33 has been launched in many other countries, there’s still no Galaxy A33 available in the US. That pushes customers down to the Galaxy A13 5G—$250, with 5G, but sluggish—or up to the $450 Galaxy A53.
Now 18 months old, the A32 may have reached the end of its natural lifespan, and the retirement doesn’t seem to have affected Samsung’s market share at carriers, according to Wave7’s report. Samsung’s share of 32% at AT&T in June was flat versus April and May, the firm says. Meanwhile, prepaid dealers have been talking up the A13, the report says.
T-Mobile has a strong Android alternative in the $200–$300 range with the $216 OnePlus Nord N200 and the $282 OnePlus Nord N20, both of which bracket the A32 in price. (The Nord N200 tends to get given away free with promotions.) Still, though, OnePlus’s share at T-Mobile is only about 4%.
AT&T recently took to heavily pushing the Moto G Stylus 5G, a supposedly $499 phone that AT&T is offering for $300 up front or $72 on a three-year contract.
The lack of a Galaxy A33 could be a whiff on Samsung’s part, or it could be an attempt by carriers and Samsung to make more profit off of the less expensive (and less powerful) A13 5G. In any case, all of this is just an example of how Americans have fewer mobile-phone choices than most other countries.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.
