Samsung Electronics on Wednesday unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, equipped with Qualcomm chips and Google’s artificial intelligence model, hoping its improved artificial intelligence features can revive sales and compete with Apple and its Chinese rivals.
Samsung was quicker than Apple to launch a smartphone with artificial intelligence, but failed to regain its place in the global smartphone market last year, crushed by fierce competition with the US rival in the high-end market and with Chinese companies in the low-end segment.
“We are ahead of the industry in providing AI capabilities. I think we are moving in the right direction,” Park Ji-sun, the executive vice president who heads Samsung’s Language AI team.
Samsung has kept prices for its Galaxy S25 series unchanged, between $799 and $1,299.
The new Galaxy S25 uses Gemini, offered by Alphabet’s Google, as its default AI engine and also features Samsung’s improved home voice assistant, Bixby, Park said.
The two tools are complementary and Bixby plays a key role at Samsung, whose products range from cell phones to televisions to 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 killer app today that, you know, would convince them (consumers), ‘OK, I’m going to buy this one 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 stored and processed on the phone for privacy reasons – will display a series of personalized items such as calendars, news and bedroom air temperature as well as carbon dioxide levels, Mr. Park said.
The phone will be able to perform multiple tasks with a single command, such as finding upcoming sporting events and adding them to the user’s calendar.
Samsung used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform for the entire Galaxy S25 lineup, ditching its own Exynos mobile chip, a major shift in strategy for a company that previously used both to gain more negotiating power with the suppliers.
The use of a Qualcomm chip is a setback for the South Korean company, whose mobile division is one of the main customers.
Samsung did not explain why it decided not to use its own chips in the new model.
A person familiar with the matter said Samsung plans to use the Exynos chip in its foldable phones that will launch later this year.
“The sale of the Galaxy S25 series is important at a time when Samsung’s foldable phone sales are stagnant amid challenges from Chinese companies,” said Lim Su-jeong, associate director at research firm Counterpoint.
Samsung’s preliminary fourth-quarter profit, released earlier this month, significantly missed estimates due to chip development costs and growing competition in the smartphone market.
