Samsung S6 phone records 500 Kenya pre-orders

What you need to know:

The Galaxy S6, which goes on sale on Friday in the Kenyan market, is the sixth edition of the South Korean electronics giant’s signature handset along with its curved-edge variant, the Galaxy S6 Edge.
The smartphones will retail between Sh70 000 and Sh90,000.
S6 has a higher processor capacity than its predecessors and is also much lighter.

Samsung Kenya recorded 500 pre-orders for both the Samsung S6 and S6 Edge before Thursday’s official launch of the two high-end phones in Nairobi, the global tech giant revealed.

The Galaxy S6, which goes on sale on Friday in the Kenyan market, is the sixth edition of the South Korean electronics giant’s signature handset along with its curved-edge variant, the Galaxy S6 Edge. The phones were launched globally on April 10.

The smartphones will retail between Sh70 000 and Sh90,000. The smartphones have new features such as wireless charging and inbuilt battery. S6 has a higher processor capacity than its predecessors and is also much lighter.

The phones’ touch-type fingerprint scanner provides quick authentication and saves encrypted data in device storage.

“By listening to our customers, and learning from both our success and areas of improvement, we continuously push forward new technologies and ideas.

With a reimagined design, latest network technologies and novel services, the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge offer users the ultimate experience in smartphone options.” said Robert Ngeru, the Samsung Electronics East Africa vice president and chief operating officer during Thursday’s launch.

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Each of the phones come with a storage option of 32GB and 64GB, with a 128 GB model slated to come later at a higher price.

Samsung rarely discloses handset sales volumes but the Galaxy S4 — released in 2013 — is known to have set the firm’s sales record of 70 million units globally.

The firm suffered a slide in profits last year, hit by slowing demand in an increasingly saturated and competitive smartphone market that it had largely dominated since 2011.

The company struggled to fend off a double challenge from Apple in the high-end market and rising Chinese firms such as Lenovo and Xiaomi in the fast-growing mid and low-end markets.

Samsung hopes the S6 will re-establish it among the global smartphone market leaders in contention with Apple, which has enjoyed good sales of its iPhone 6 launched last September.