In an interview with Reuters, Yoon said the S5 "is selling faster than the S4 so far, though it's difficult to share specific numbers as we're still at early stages". He added that the company expects S5 sales to be "much better than the S4". Though Samsung did not offer any sales target for the S5, the company sold more than 10 million S4s in the first month of the phone's launch. Yoon said the S5 should do significantly better than this.
The senior VP said the company put a greater focus on useful software and services this time with the flagship phone, while hardware enhancements are more limited, such as water-resistance, a better camera and "ultra power-savings mode", which automatically turns off unnecessary apps when the battery runs low. For example, he said the S5 was shipped to carriers with 40 apps installed as opposed to more than 50 in the previous models.
Yoon also said Samsung was working to introduce at least two smartphones running on its own Tizen operating system. The first, a high-end model, should be available by the end of Q2, while the second would mainly target the mid-market. Yoon said that although Android "still needs to be our main business", Tizen or Windows would be used for markets that Android could not address. An earlier planned launch of a Tizen phone with operators DoCoMo and Orange did not go ahead, due to "poor market conditions", Yoon said. As a result, Samsung changed its strategy and will release the phones in a few countries "where we can do well", he said.
He added that Tizen would have to account for up to 15 percent of Samsung's total smartphone shipments to become a successful platform. Samsung already launched smartwatches running Tizen, and Yoon said the company will introduce an Android-based smartwatch later this year as well. Yoon said Samsung was also planning to launch a new version of the Galaxy Note with a "new form factor" in the second half, without elaborating.
